LIVING LITERATURE SERIES 

Richard Burton, Ph.D^ Editor-in-Chief "X^is^ 



SELECTED WRITINGS 

OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



EDITED BT 

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, LL. D., Litt. D. 

PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




THE GREGG PUBLISHING COMPANY 

NEW YORK — CHICAGO BOSTON — SAN FRANCISCO 

LIVERPOOL 






COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE 

GREGG PUBLISHING COMPANY 

E 5a 



g)CU604.348 



»■ IS;f920^ 



AAO 



PREFACE 

The literature that lives has nothing to do with Time. 
It may be a farce by Aristophanes, a speech of Cicero's, 
a canto of Dante's song, or a story by O. Henry; it is 
always a question of vitality. On the contrary, a piece of 
writing that lacks this precious, preservative quality dies 
the day it is bom. The idea that because a poem, a tale, 
a play, or an essay was written a hundred or a thousand 
years ago, it must necessarily be dead, is quite false. Al- 
ways the question is : Has it charm, beauty, power, human 
meaning? If it has it will survive; if it is without these 
saving graces, it not only will not last, but never was alive. 

We speak of the "dead languages," and the familiar 
phrase is right in the sense that the tongues themselves 
in the form they once took are no longer vital on the 
lips of men. But the thought and feeling embodied in 
the words of great writers during the so-called classic 
days of Greece and Rome are truly and splendidly alive 
to-day, for the simple reason that they were alive then; 
and are so true to the universal experience of mankind, 
and so beautiful in their expression, that Time cannot 
touch them nor age wither their "infinite variety." 

The books of the present series are vital for this reason 
and in this sense. They belong, to be sure, to the modern 
period and do not go further back than the eighteenth 

3 



4 PREFACE 

century ; most of them fall in the nineteenth or the twenti- 
eth century. But they are selected not because they are of 
this or that period, but primarily for the reason that they 
are fine examples of the art of letters, and illustrate what 
living literature is and always will be, so long as men 
can read and think and feel the force and attraction of 
winged words, couched in the noble tongue which was 
native to those who use it, and is the priceless heritage and 
possession of all who communicate their thought in Eng- 
lish speech. 

The first half-dozen volumes of the series offer authors, 
British or American, who are strictly contemporary. In- 
terest in writers of our own day naturally precedes interest 
in the older, even standard writers. So far as appeal is 
concerned, literature, like charity, begins at home, both 
as to time and place. Later, some of the elder master- 
pieces will be offered, like a novel of Scott's, or George 
Eliot's, or a play by Sheridan or Goldsmith. But it 
should be realized and recognized that the work of mod- 
ern men such as Stevenson, or Huxley, can lay claim 
to equal consideration so long as it is sound as art and 
sane and tonic in the representation of life. An author 
of to-day is not of necessity to be treated as a suspect, 
although he has not so long been tested by critical opinion. 

It is believed that the contemporary writers included 
here have produced masterpieces deserving inclusion in 
any fair, broadminded, and enjoyable study of the native 
letters. That is why they are presented herewith, and 
given prominence. R. B. 



CONTENTS 



An asterisk [*] denotes pieces printed in full. 
Omissions indicated in all other texts by dashes [ ] 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 11 

I. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

1. 1858, June *Autobiographical Sketch Pre- 

pared FOR THE Dictionary of 
Congress 26 

2. 1859, Dec. 20 *Brief Autobiography Prepared 

FOR J. W. Fell 26 

3. 1860, June 1 *Short Autobiography Prepared 

FOR A Popular Campaign ... 29 

4. 1860, June 14 *Memorandum Given to the Artist 

Hicks 40 

II. 1836-1853 

5. 1836, June 13 Early Principles of Popular Gov- 

ernment 41 

6. 1837, Jan. 27 Reverence for Law .... 42 

7. 1839, Dec. 26 On the Stump 48 

8. 1841, Sept. 27 *A Near View of Slavery ... 49 
d. 1845, Oct. 3 *Opinions on Texas 50 

10. 1847, Dec. 22 *Against the Mexican War ... 53 

11. 1850, July *Self- Advice for a Lawyer ... 55 

12. 1851, Jan. 2 *Advice to a Slack Man .... 57 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

III. 1854-1860 

1854 PAGE 

13. 1854, May 29 " Lost Speech " on Slavery . . . 60 

1855 

14. 1855, Aug. 24 *The Slavery Crisis 64 

15. 1855, Aug. 15 Origin op the Idea of Half Slave 

AND Half Free 70 

1856 

16. 1856 Equality the Central Idea . . 71 

17. 1856 No Dissolution of the Union . 73 

1857 

18. 1857, June 26 Dred Scott Decision .... 75 

1858 

19. 1858, June 16 *"A House Divided Against Itself 

Cannot Stand" 78 

20. 1858, July 10 Popular Sovereignty .... 88 

21. 1858, July 10 Essence of the Declaration of 

Independence 91 

22. 1858, Aug. 27 The Freeport Doctrine ... 93 

23. 1858, Aug. 1 [?1 *Definition of Democracy ... 98 

24. 1858, Sept. 13 Our Defense Is the Spirit op 

Liberty 98 

25. 1858, Aug. 17 Come Back to the Declaration of 

Independence 99 

1859 

26. 1859, Apr. 6 *The Principles of Jefferson . . 102 

27. 1859, Sept. 17 Capital and Labor 104 

1860 

28. 1860, Feb. 27 An Appeal to the South at Cooper 

Institute 109 



CONTENTS 7 

PAGE 

1860, Labor's Interest Against Slavery 125 

1860, July 21 *Knownothingism 127 

1860, Nov. 20- 

Dec. 13 *Elected President 129 

1860, Dec. 17 *To Run the Machine as It Is. . 130 

1860, Dec. 22 *The Basis of Compromise ... 131 

IV. 1861-1865 

1861 

1861, Feb. 11- 

Feb. 22 *The State op the Union . . . 132 

1861, Mar. 4 *The First Inaugural .... 147 

1861, Mar. 16 *Asking Advice of the Senate . 159 

1861, Apr. 1 *The President Is President . . 162 

1861, May 25 *Loss of a Noble Soldier . . . 163 

1861, Apr. 15 *The Call to Arms 164 

1861, July 4 *The War Message 166 

1861, Oct. 17 *" Wanting to Work" .... 188 

1861, Dec. 3 The Nation and the War . . 188 

1862 

1862, Jan. 10 A Message to English Working 

Men 200 

1862, Feb. 14 *Executive Order on Political 

Prisoners 202 

1862, Mar. 4 *Friendship with Other Nations . 206 

1862, Mar. 10 *Advice to the Border States . . 206 

1862, Apr. 10 *Proclamation op Thanksgiving 

for Victories 213 

1862, May 15- 

Dec. 23 Thanks to the Soldiers . . . 214 

1862, May 26 *The Broader Powers op the Con- 
stitution 218 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

50. 1862, July 28 *The Army and Fugitive Slaves . 222 

51. 1862, July 21 *Duty of Aliens 225 

52. 1862, Aug. 22 *Answer to the ''Prayer of Twenty 

Millions" 226 

53. 1862, Aug. 14 *Colonization of Negroes . . . 227 

54. 1862, Sept. 13 *Delay in Emancipation ... 234 

55. 1862, Sept. 22 *Preliminary Emancipation Procla- 

mation 238 

56. 1862, Sept. 24 *The Judgment of the Country . . 242 

57. 1862, Nov. 4 *The Slowness op the War . . 243 

58. 1862, Dec. 12 *Hopes of Peace 245 

1863 

59. 1863, Jan. 1 *Final Proclamation of Emancipa- 

tion 246 

30. 1863, Jan. 22- 

Oct. 4 The Commander-in-Chief to the 

Generals 249 

61. 1863, Jan. 2 *War on the Ministers . . . 259 

62. 1863, Jan. 5 *Prayers of God's People . . . 261 

63. 1863, Feb. 22 *The Long-Enduring Consequences 262 

64. 1863, Mar. 10 *Recalling Soldiers to Their 

Regiments 263 

65. 1863, May 8 *Military Service of Aliens . .*" 264 

66. 1863, June 29 *The Constitution in War ... 267 

67. 1863, July 4 *Victory at Gettysburg . . . 274 

68. 1863, July 7 *" The Fourth of July" .... 274 

69. 1863, Aug. 26 *Effect of Emancipation . . . 276 

70. 1863, Nov. 19 *Gettysburg Address . . . .281 

71. 1863, Dec. 8 *Proclamation of Amnesty and 

Reconstruction 282 

72. 1863, Dec. 8 Review of the War .... 286 



CONTENTS 9 

1864 PAGE 

1864, Jan. 7 *" Trying to Evade the Butchering 

Business" 294 

1864, Mar. 1 *A Positive Direction .... 295 

1864, Mar. 9- 

Apr. 30 Lincoln and Grant 295 

1864, Mar. 21 *Capital and Labor 296 

1864, Apr. 4 *The Case Against Slavery . . 300 

1864, Apr. 18 *What Is Liberty? 303 

1864, May 14 *Honor to the Churches . . . 306 

1864, June 16 *Sticking to the War .... 307 

1864, Aug. 15 *Abiding the Issue 309 

1864, Aug. 18- 

Aug. 22 What Is Involved in This Contest 311 

1864, Sept. 4 *The Purposes of the Almighty . 313 

1864, Oct. 19 *The Constitution the Ultimate 

Law 314 

1864, Nov. 9 *No Free Government Without 

Elections 316 

1864, Nov. 17 * Victory, Not Triumph . . . . 317 
1864, Dec. 6 The Anti-Slavery Amendment to 

the Constitution . . . . . 318 

1864, Dec. 16 *Origin of the Greenbacks . . 324 

1864, Nov. 21 *To the Mother of Five Heroes . 325 
1864, May 9- 

Nov. 10 Response to Serenades . . . 326 

1864, Aug. 3 Following to the Death . . . 329 

1865 

1865, Mar. 4 *"With Malice Toward None, with 

Charity for All" .... 329^ 

1865, Apr. 11 *Last Public Address .... 332 '- 

Lincoln Chronology .... 339 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



I. Choice of Material 

The written and spoken words of Abraham Lincoln are 
the precious heritage of the American people, both for 
their noble sentiments upon the duties and opportunities 
of America, and for their significance as an essential 
part of the English tongue. A poor boy, a hard-working 
youth and long an obscure lawyer, Abraham Lincoln be- 
came the leader of the nation in a time of crisis. A 
painfully self-educated youth, he nevertheless placed him- 
self among the immortals by his splendid thoughts and 
almost unapproachable powers of expression. 

For these reasons, the works of Abraham Lincoln are 
a treasurehouse for the people of the United States; and 
their study should be a part of the education of every 
boy and girl. He was the cleanest, most effective, and 
most widely read author of his times. He wrote in many 
fields and in many moods. Sometimes he was exact, 
sometimes rhetorical, but always clear, to the farthest 
possibility of human speech. He could be calm ; he could 
be gay; he could be stern; he could be passionate. He 
made the English language fit itself to his thoughts. 
Like Dante, he might have boasted that he never wan- 
dered in search of a word, but that he had made words 
speak for him more than any other man. 

11 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In making up a proper selection for the use of schools 
and readers, the first difficulty has been to choose; for 
few great writers have provided so small a proportion 
that can be disregarded. The editor's duty has been to 
find the text of the speeches and state papers which by 
common consent are among his greatest works, especially 
the *'House Divided Against Itself," the two inaugurals, 
the war message of July, 1861, the "Answer to the Prayer 
of Twenty Millions," and that climax of skill and soul, 
*The Gettysburg Address." 

The editions of Lincoln's works which have been 
searched in making up these selections, contain scores 
of extracts little below those masterpieces. There has 
been no difficulty in finding other materials; the editor's 
task has been to decide what speeches could be omitted 
or shortened so as to bring the whole within the limits of 
this volume. 

No collection represents the greatness of Lincoln which 
does not reproduce the whole of some of the large 
pieces and many of the short ones, because they are units, 
every word necessary to bring out the fullness of Lincoln's 
mind, and the wonderful capacity of revealing himself in 
what he wrote. Hence the whole of several of the speeches 
on the slavery question from 1854 to 1860 are included, 
as well as the two inaugurals, the first war message, and 
the letter here entitled the "Constitutional War" (June, 
1863). 

On the other hand in many of the political speeches, 
especially before his election as president, he devoted 
much space to complicated questions, then before the 
country, which have long since been adjusted and put 



CHOICE OF MATERIAL 13 

away. For instance the student of history is concerned 
with the exact issues in the Compromise of 1850, the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and 
the Lecompton Constitution, while the student litera- 
ture is chiefly interested in Lincoln as a master of 
statecraft and of oratory. 

Hence in such controversies as that with Douglas in 
1858, and in the Cooper Institute speech the details of 
the politics of the time have been left out, in order to 
bring into relief the essential principles which have no 
limit of time. 

Some writers must be judged by elaborate works. You 
must read the whole of an essay of Emerson or a tale 
of Poe or a novel of Hawthorne to understand those 
authors at all. No such works were ever written by 
Abraham Lincoln. His longest public speech would not 
occupy more than about thirty pages of this book. The 
spirit, the humor, the grasp of the man are perhaps best 
revealed in short, pithy memoranda and letters which at 
the same time carry the reader back to the epoch in 
which Lincoln was the greatest figure. Hence the large 
number of short extracts in this work ranging from 
forty words upwards. In two pieces, "Thanks to the 
Soldier" (1862), and the ^'Commander-in-Chief (1863), 
extracts have been assembled from kindred letters, tele- 
grams, and off-hand addresses scattered through many 
months, all bearing upon his point of view totward the 
soldier and the officer. 

It has not been part of the editor's intent to prepare 
an historical book, though Lincoln's writings necessarily 
give point to the study of United States history. Lincoln 



14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was a public man from his early manhood. He thought 
in terms of politics and government. Above all he had 
a natural sense of human freedom, an indestructible 
love for, belief in, and championship of, liberty. He was 
an anti-slavery man by origin, because more clearly than 
any other man of his time he saw that slavery of the 
negro tended to degrade the white man. He saw it the 
more plainly because he was a Southern man by birth. 
Throughout his life he was intimately associated with 
slave holders and supporters of slavery. He never hated 
them; he always hated the system, which as he once 
said, "has and continuously exercises the power of making 
me miserable." 

II. Classification of Material 

The extracts in this volume appear in their chrono- 
logical sequence. They might easily be classified, accord- 
ing to subject, the first department being the brief auto- 
biographies which appear at the beginning. Little of 
the familiar personal correspondence with friends and 
kin appears here; but it would be impossible to omit such 
pieces as a "Near View of Slavery," "Advice to a Slack 
Man," "To Run the Machine as It Is"; and above all, 
those lofty letters to the kindred of dead soldiers, here 
printed under the titles "Loss of a Noble Soldier," and 
"To the Mother of Five Heroes," which almost equal the 
Gettysburg Address in power and perhaps surpass it in 
the direct touch of humanity. 

Akin to these are the numerous brief speeches and 
letters, especially toward the end of the Civil War, which 



CLASSIFICATION OF MATERIAL 15 

in Lincoln's hands were cut jewels of expression, and 
infused with the noblest ideals. Any regiment marching 
up to the White House, might call out from the Presi- 
dent a few words, which, if he had spoken no others, 
would place him at the head of American oratory. 

Before his actual entering into public life Lincoln 
began to frame carefully-wrought speeches, which soon 
turned in the direction of a crusade against slavery. 
From 1845 to 1865 there was hardly a formal public 
speech or message which did not contain his simple doc- 
trine that a government of the people meant government 
for all the people; that to exclude one race from the 
rights of man, would in the end logically and certainly 
lead to the attempt of one part of the privileged class 
to shut out another part — till free government perished. 

The abolitionist hated slavery and declaimed against it. 
Lincoln was the one man of his time who, though not 
an abolitionist, foresaw the inevitable effect upon the 
community of the advance of slave power. In the great 
struggle of the fifties, he was the one man that never gave 
up the principle that no more slave states must be ad- 
mitted, that no privileg es must be given to slavery in the 
territories. He followed in and out through the windings 
of Douglas' time-serving logic in imperishable speeches. 

As chief executive of the nation in the troublous times 
of the Civil War, Lincoln wrote elaborate state papers, 
which bring to the light his human and adroit way of 
dealing with individuals. Witness his rebuke to Seward 
in the "President is President" (1861), his inaugurals and 
annual messages, his proclamations, especially the two 
bearing on the emancipation of the slaves and his "Last 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Public Address," all significant examples of the brilliant 
and close-knit arguments of a luminou s mind . 

The study of Lincoln is necessary both for the politi- 
cian and the writer. No man better understood the arts 
of politics, the kind of appeal that reaches legislators and 
political leaders and, — -stUl more important, — ^which works 
its way into the mind of the voter. Lincoln was not 
always successful with Congress. He could not induce 
the two houses to grant general compensated emancipa- 
tion, nor to provide for colqniging the negroes, but he 
did convince the country that he was honest and sincere, 
and that he had put up a good and honest argument. He 
made the people see. 

On the other hand, since the object of both the spoken 
and written word is to convince, Lincoln should be the 
model and the study of the would-be journalist, lawyer, 
minister, teacher, and public man; for his works are a 
storehouse of limpid t hpugji ts, expressed in cogent^ -mirds, 
set into logical and powerful sentences and combined 
into arguments of mighty power. Lincoln's sternest re- 
bukes and his most humorous sallies are alike models 
of the right way to reach the minds of other people, to 
make them listen to you, to set them aflame with your 
own generous enthusiasms. 

III. The Many-Sided Lincoln 

Lincoln was able to make the world hear him because 
he knew the world. Amazing that this backswoodsman, 
this awkward civilian, this country member of Congress, 
this ambitious speech-making lawyer, should be as big 



THE MANY-SIDED LINCOLN 17 

and as many sided as the g.reat Intellectuals of the 
Renaissance. Lincoln is our Michael Angelo. 

In the first place he was a man of the woods. He 
knew the frontier from camp-fire to court-house. He 
was one of the first group of national statesmen who 
owed their training and opportunity to the West. That 
frontier life was hard, coarse, and material, Lincoln began 
at the very bottom of a low stage of society. Yet from 
the beginning he showed that desire to know what was 
going on in the world, which finally filled his memory 
with the thoughts of the few books and the many men 
that he had known. 

To the end of his life he kept some of the backwoods 
habits — awkward motions, love of a boisterous jpk^, 
stories, in which he was a master. He kept also 
the primitive sense of man-for-man life amid an un- 
broken country and savage enemies. He never lost that » 
genuine warm interest in men and women, boys and - 
girls, and babies. He felt it as Henry Clay felt it, and * 
Theodore Roosevelt. Reading about Lincoln is reading 
about mankind, and especially about Americans. 

His very personality made friends for him. That 
tall, angular, ungraceful man, with little knowledge of 
the refined literary circle which was so powerful in his 
time, somehow could make friends with all sorts of people. 
He could appreciate the best that was in his neighbor 
the poor white. Jack Armstrong, one of the Clary Grove 
gang at New Salem; and he liked and understood that 
high-bred gentleman, William H. Seward. He was not 
averse to a wrestling match with the one and a paper and 
ink contest with the other — and was victorious in both. 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Fortunate the statesman who gets such affectionate nick- 
names as ''Old Abe," "Honest Old Abe," and "Father 
Abraham"! Even Southern men who understood the 
times best had a personal liking for Lincoln and sorrow- 
fully understood that when he was taken away in 1865, 
the South lost more than the North, because they more 
needed an understanding friend. 

IV. Lincoln the Lawyer 

Lincoln was by profession and by temperament a law- 
yer, for he had the qualities that meant success in law 
in his time, and would make him a great legal light to-day. 
Law was a rather simple matter on the frontier a cen- 
tury ago. Every ambitious youngster read Blackstone; 
every law student drew deeds and did other clerical work 
in the law office of an older man; everybody set up for 
himself as soon as he could, and joined in the elbow push 
far business. The judges were taken out of the working 
bar and knew little more law than those who pleaded 
before them. 

The truly successful lawyer was, therefore, the man who 
could carry a jury ; that is the man who understood human 
nature. In this personal hammer-and-tongs kind of law 
Lincoln was very successful; for he had the humor and 
the power to put on the kind of oratory that juries liked ; 
and at the same time he had two great advantages over 
many of his fellow members of the Ijar. The first was 
that his mind went right into the heart of his case. He 
had the rare skill to see what the whole thing is about, 
what the real issue is, which later made him a great 



LINCOLN THE LAWYER 19 

president. At the same time he had a reputation for 
personal integrity. There were cases he would not take; 
there were cases he would not argue. Hence, when he 
took and argued a case, there was a presumption that he 
was right; and every client knew that his advocate was 
certain to give him his Jue. His great cases were few 
but honorable. He was a safe and trusted man. So far 
as we have a record of his legal ajguments, they show 
the same insight, the same ability to seize on the critical 
issue, that he showed in politics and as president. 

In the West most successful lawyers went into politics, 
and most of the successful politicians were lawyers. 
This was partly because arguments at the bar were very 
like speeches on the stump, and also because those new 
communities needed men who could frame constitutions 
and statutes. From 1837 to 1849 Abraham Lincoln was 
in the battle front of the lively political struggles of the 
time. He was an ardent Whig, a supporter of Henry 
Clay, and early in life entered into rivalry with Stephen A. 
Douglas, a Vermont boy who came early to the West 
and took the Democratic side in politics. 

Nobody understood the game of politics better than 
Abraham Lincoln. He was a master hand in conventions 
and campaigning. He especially liked to drag an oppo- 
nent out of his retirement and show his inconsistencies. 
He was afraid of nobody, was physically able to protect 
himself in the rough and tumble difficulties of the fron- 
tier, and on one occasion even took part in the prepara- 
tion for a grotesque duel with a fellow politician. He 
was famed for his skill in interpreting election returns; 
that is, for a power of generalization based on an in- 



20 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

stinctive knowledge of human nature. He was an excel- 
lent campaigner, as was shown particularly in his great 
debates with Douglas. 

V. Lincoln the Orator 

^ Speaking is one thing, oratory is another. In his earli- 
7> est formal address, that of 1837, Lincoln shows many of 

"* the marks of his wondrous skill as a public speaker. He 
was influenced by the wordy tradition of his time, but 
he shows that persistent search for the main question 
was the foundation stone of his success. In Congress 
his speeches, as reported by the official stenographer, are 
below his average; his humor in them is rou^ and per- 

^^C sonal. After he retired in 1849, for five years he took 
little part in public affairs. He was roused by the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill of 1854, which he justly looked upon as an 
attempt by Douglas to gain influence as "a Northern man 
with Southernprinciples." In his famous "Lost Speech" 

,Q of 1854^. parts of which appear in this volume, he used 

Wa fiercer attack than was his custom. As early as 1855, 
r he thought out and put in writing the tremendous^Jruth, 
hard ly percei ved by any one else at that time, that the 
Union could not endure "half slave and half free." In 
\ 1856 he stood forward as the champion j2£_^:ggdom against 
Douglas. In 1858, in one of the most courageous mo- 
^ ments of his life, he chall enged the mighty^^ouglas, the 
^ quickest, boldest, and unfair est of debaters, to a series 
of seven joint debates, in which he showed himself the 
profo undest thinke r, the highest orator, and the bravest 
champion of his time. 



LINCOLN THE OKATOR 21 

There is not room in this work for even one full speech 
out of the seven. Much of the argument on both sides 
was transient; enough appears here, however, to show 
both the weight of Lincoln's matter and the keenness 
of his retort. Douglas throughout was trying to put 
Lincoln in a hole, to expose him to public odium for 
opinions which he never held, to belittle him personally, 
to bring the discussion down to Abraham Lincoln, instead 
of Abraham Lincoln's principles. 

Throughout, Lincoln showed the skill of the gladiator, 
the nerve of the matador. In the adroit Freeport speech 
he compelled Douglas to accept defeat or to ^'pander to 
the better elements" by admitting that slavery could be 
prevented in the territories by someone. Tradition has 
it that when Lincoln announced that he meant to put the 
test question to the "Little Giant" his friends remon- 
strated with him, declaring that Douglas would answer 
it in only one way and that would make him senator, to 
which Lincoln replied, "Yes, and it will make me presi- 
dent." 

Whether he said just that or not, the debates did make 
him president ; for they put him in relief as the strongest 
opponent of slavery and of the proslavery party which 
the southern Democrats were building up. The speech 
at Cooper Union in New York early in 1860 (a consider- 
able part of it here reprinted), was another vital state- 
ment of the eternal principles for which he stood. That 
and a series of later speeches in New England, for which 
there is not room here, made friends for him in the East. 
It was oratory that made Lincoln first a possible, and then \ 
a sure candidate; but not the oratory of a John Randolph, i 



22 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

biting and destructive. Lincoln had the majesty of Web- 
ster in spite of his ungainly person. He had the logic 
of Calhoun, the diction of Edward Everett, and the tre- 
mendous emphasis of Wendell Phillips. Above all he 
had simplicity, the straightforwardness, the tremendous 
moral conviction of Abraham Lincoln. 

As president, Lincoln made not a single long or care- 
fully prepared public address except his two official in- 
augurals. He stated his policy in five long messages to 
Congiess, portions of which are included in this collec- 
tion; but he attended no_dinners, was present at no jij^ss 
meetings. His oratory found its most perfect fruit in 
brief impromptu addresses, such as those at the sanitary 
fairs, and from the balcony of the White House to visiting 
regiments. These are the gems of Lincoln's works, and 
they are well represented below. Akin to them, yet above 
them all, was the Gettysburg Address, which was a dis- 
appointment to an audience that expected a long speech. 
It was instantly taken up as one of the fullest and 
noblest appeals ever made by man to fellow men. "Gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, for the people" is a 
political Bible text for the nation. 

yi. Lincoln the Writer 

Oratory and literature do not necessarily fit together. 
Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Kobert C. Winthrop were 
renowned orators, yet left nothing remarkable in un- 
spoken writings. Hawthorne, Whittier, and Longfellow 
had no gift of compelling public speech. Abraham 
Lincoln, however, was in the front rank both of orators 



LINCOLN THE WKITEK 23 

and writers. Here is the miracle of Lincoln : his boyhood 
was so crude, his education so fragmentary, his acquaint- 
ance with literature so small; and yet he is one of those 
who in his written thoughts ''shall stand among princes, 
he shall not stand among mean men." 

Recent researches have shown that Lincoln was a man 
of few books — among them the Bible, Shakespeare, Black- 
stone, Weem^s Washington. He knew no language except 
English, although late in life he painfully set himself to 
learn German. Yet hardly any writer of the English ever 
had such skill in using mainly Anglo-Saxon words in 
just the right meaning. 

The truth is that Lincoln was a natural poet; not a 
versifier, for the specimens of his early attempts to write 
in rhymes are mournful in tone and lifeless in execution. 
He wrote a few lectures and essays; but outside of his 
speeches he expressed himself best in his letters. As a 
boy he wrote with the moonstruck spirit of callow youth. 
Yet his earliest preserved letters are full of pith and of 
humor; he sometimes wrote a speech in letter form. It 
was during the Civil War, in the midst of the overwhelm- 
ing pressure of a Nation's cares, that his literary tongue 
rose to his highest quality. The extracts from his let- 
ters and telegrams to generals in the field show the native 
hard common sense o'f the man and his power to put a f 
general order into a phrase. "Fight him too, when oppor- I 
tunity oSers. If he stay where he is fret him and fret I 
him." "Hold him with a bulldog grip and chew and 
choke as much as possible!" Such phrases go along with 
Wellington's "Up guards and at them." 

And the letters to the fathers and mothers of soldiers. 



24 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

to the Ellsworths, to Mrs. Gurney, to Mrs. Bixby, — in 
them you find the flower of Lincoln's style. Heart speaks 
to heart. The great man feels himself a brother to the 
obscure. The head of the nation is beaten down by the 
woes of every individual. That is the consummate art 
of the artless man, who never dreamed that his words 
would live for ages after him; who never imagined that 
he was placing himself among the immortals. 

YIL Lincoln the Interpreter 

Not every one, not any one, can be an Abraham Lincoln, 
for such men come only once in a thousand years. Every 
one however can take a mental impetus from his written 
and spoken words. Whoever wants to think clearly and 
write clearly should study Lincoln, of whom exact and 
unmistakable statement was an inseparable part. Who- 
ever cherishes high thoughts, noble purposes and a grand 
belief in the destiny of his country, must read Lincoln, 
who is the interpreter of his generation. 

What made him great in so many fields? He could 
not have told you. To his mind he had simply gone on 
from year to year doing what came to him to do, in the 
fear of the Lord. He was not free from faults and errors. 
He says in one of the telegrams to his generals, "I 
frequently make mistakes myself." His surpassing power 
was his instinctive knowledge of the minds of his country- 
men. He applied to the great questions of the day the 
same simple principles of justice between man and man 
that he practiced among his neighbors. What set him 
apart from millions of equally honest and well-meaning 



LINCOLN THE INTEKPKETEK 25 

men, was that somehow he knew what other people were 
thinking and what they could and would do. To him may 
be applied the verse of Homer when he describes Nausi- 
caa's shy request to king Alcinous, *'And her father smiled 
for he knows everything." 

A. B. R 



SELECTED WRITINGS OF 
LINCOLN 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

Autobiographical Sketch Prepared for the Dictionary of 
Congress (June, 1858) 

Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. 
Education defective. 
Profession, a lawyer. 

Have been a captain of volunteers in Black Hawk war. 
Postmaster at a very small office. 

Four times a member of the Illinois legislature, and 
was a member of the lower house of Congress. Yours, etc., 

Brief Autobiography Prepared for J. W. Fell (Decem- 
ber 20, 1859) 

My Dear Sir: Herewith is a little sketch, as you re- 
quested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I 
suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be 
made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go 
beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to 
incorporate anything from any of my speeches I suppose 

26 



AUTOBIOGEAPHIES 27 

there would be no objection. Of course it must not 
appear to have been written by myself. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln.^ 

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
undistinguished families — second families, perhaps I 
should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was 
of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now 
reside in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. 
My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated 
from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 
1781 or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed 
by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was 
laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who 
were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Penn- 
sylvania. An effort to identify them with the New Eng- 
land family of the same name ended in nothing more 
definite than a similarity of Christian names in both fam- 
ilies, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, 
and the like. 

My father, at the death of his father, was but six 
years of age, and he grew up literally without education. 
He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer 
County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our 
new home about the time that State came into the Union. 
It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild 
animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There 
were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever 

*The Collection of Mrs. Hester V. Fell, of Normal, 111. 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ieq["uired of a teacher beyond "reading writin', and- 
cipherin' " to the Rule of Three. If a straggler sup- 
posed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the 
neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There 
was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. 
Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. 
Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the 
Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to 
school since. The little advance I now have upon this 
store of education I have picked up from time to time 
under the pressure of necessity. 

I was raised to farm work, which 1 continued till I 
was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon 
County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in 
Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a 
year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black 
Hawk war ; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a ^ 
success which gave me more pleasure than any I have 
had since. I went into the campaign, was elated, ran for 
the Legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten — 
the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The 
next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected 
to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. 
During this legislative period I had studied law, and 
removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was 
once elected to the lower House of Congress. Was not a 
candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both in- 
clusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. 
Always a Whig in politics; and generally on the Whig 
electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing 
interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Com- 



AUT0BI0GKAPHIE3 29 

promise aroused me again. What I have done since then 
is pretty well known. 

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, 
it may be said I am, in height^ six feet four inches, 
nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hun- 
dred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse 
black Kair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands 
recollected. Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



Precarsd for a Popular Campaign Biography (June, 1860) 

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, then in 
Hardin, now in the more recently formed county of La 
Rue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, and grandfather, 
Abraham, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia, 
whither their ancestors had come from Berks County, 
Pennsylvania. His lineage has been traced no farther 
back than this. The family were originally Quakers, 
though in later times they have fallen away from the 
peculiar habits of that people. The grandfather, Abra- 
ham, had four brothers — Isaac, Jacob, John, and Thomas. 
So far as known, the descendants of Jacob and John are 
still in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near where Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee join; and his de- 
scendants are in that region. Thomas came to Kentucky, 
and after many years died there, whence his descendants 
went to Missouri. Abraham, grandfather of the subject 
of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by In- 
dians about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons, 
and two daughters. The eldest son, Mordecai, remained 



30 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

in Kentucky till late in life, when he removed to Hancock 
County, Illinois, where soon after he died, and where 
several of his descendants still remain. The second son, 
Josiah, removed at an early day to a place on Blue River, 
now within Hancock County, Indiana, but no recent in- 
formation of him or his family has been obtained. The 
eldest sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume, and some of 
her descendants are now known to be in Breckenridge 
County, Kentucky. The second sister, Nancy, married 
William Brumfield, and her family are not known to have 
left Kentucky, but there is no recent information from 
them. Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the 
present subject, by the early death of his father, and 
very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in child- 
hood was a wandering laboring boy, and grew up literally 
without education. He never did more in the way of 
writing than to bunglingly write his own name. Before 
he was grown he passed one year as a hired hand with 
his uncle Isaac on Watauga, a branch of the Holston 
River. Getting back into Kentucky, and having reached 
his twenty-eighth year, he married Nancy Hanks — mother 
of the present subject — in the year 1806. She also was 
born in Virginia; and relatives of hers of the name of 
Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles, in Macon, 
and in Adams counties, Illinois, and also in Iowa. The 
present subject has no brother or sister of the whole or 
half blood. He had a sister, older than himself, who was 
grown and married, but died many years ago, leaving no 
child; also a brother, younger than himself, who died in 
infancy. Before leaving Kentucky, he and his sister 
were sent, for short periods, to A B C schools, the first 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 31 

kept by Zachariah Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. 
At this time his father resided on Knob Creek, on the 
road from Bardstown, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, 
at a point three or three and a half miles south or south- 
west of Atherton's Ferry, on the Rolling Fork. From 
this place he removed to what is now Spencer County, 
Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, Abraham then being in 
his eighth year. This removal was partly on account of 
slavery, but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land 
titles in Kentucky. He settled in an unbroken forest, and 
the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task 
ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large for his 
age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from 
that till within his twenty-third year he was almost 
constantly handling that most useful instrument — less, 
of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons. At this 
place Abraham took an early start as a hunter, which was 
never much improved afterward. A few days before the 
completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, 
a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, 
and Abraham with a rifle-gun, standing inside, shot 
through a crack and killed one of them. He has never 
since pulled a trigger on any larger game. In the autumn 
of 1818 his mother died; and a year afterward his father 
married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Elizabethtown, Ken- 
tucky, a widow with three children of her first marriage. 
She proved a good and kind mother to Abraham, and is 
still living in Coles County, Illinois. There were no 
children of this second marriage. His father's residence 
continued at the same place in Indiana tiU 1830. While 
here Abraham went to A B C schools by littles, kept 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

successively by Andrew Crawford, Sweeney, and 

Azel W. Dorsey. He does not remember any other. The 
family of Mr. Dorsey now resides in Schuyler County, 
Illinois. Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all 
his schooling did not amount to one year. He was never 
in a college or academy as a student, and never inside 
of a college or academy building till since he had a law 
license. What he has in the way of education he has 
picked up. After he was twenty-three and had separated 
from his father, he studied English grammar — imperfectly, 
of course, but so as to speak and write as well as he now 
does. He studied and nearly mastered the six books of 
Euclid since he was a member of Congress. He regrets 
his want of education, and does what he can to supply 
the want. In his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, 
and apparently killed for a time. When he was nine- 
teen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon 
a flatboat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand merely, 
and he and a son of the owner, without other assistance, 
made the trip. The nature of part of the "cargo-load," as 
it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and 
trade along the sugar-coast; and one night they were at- 
tacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob 
them. They were hurt some in the melee, but succeeded 
in driving the negroes from the boat, and then "cut cable," 
"weighed anchor," and left. 

March 1, 1830, Abraham having just completed his 
twenty-first year, his father and family, with the families 
of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his stepmother, 
left the old homestead in Indiana and came to Illinois. 
Their mode of conveyance was wagons drawn by ox teams. 



AUTOBIOGEAPHIES 33 

and Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached the 
county of Macon, and stopped there some time within the 
same month of March. His father and family settled a 
new place on the north side of the Sangamon River, at 
the junction of the timberland and prairie, about ten 
miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log 
cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of 
rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the 
ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same 
year. These are, or are supposed to be, the rails about 
which so much is being said just now, though these are 
far from being the first or only rails ever made by 
Abraham. 

The sons-in-law were temporarily settled in other places 
in the county. In the autumn all hands were greatly 
afflicted with ague and fever, to which they had not 
been used, and by which they were greatly discouraged, 
so much so that they determined on leaving the county. 
They remained, however, through the succeeding winter, 
which was the winter of the very celebrated "deep snow" 
of Illinois. During that winter Abraham, together with 
his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, 
yet residing in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton 
Offutt to take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illinois, to 
New Orleans; and for that purpose were to join him — 
Offutt — at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should 
go off. When it did go off, which was about the first of 
March, 1831, the county was so flooded as to make travel- 
ing by land impracticable ; to obviate which difficulty they 
purchased a large canoe, and came down the Sangamon 
River in it. This is the time and the manner of Abra- 



34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ham^s first entrance into Sangamon County. They found 
Offutt at Springfield, but learned from him that he had 
failed in getting a boat at Beardstown. This led to 
their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars per 
month each, and getting the timber out of the trees and 
building a boat at Old Sangamon town on the Sangamon 
River, seven miles northwest of Springfield, which boat 
they took to New Orleans, substantially upon the old 
contract. 

During this Boat-enterprise acquaintance with Offutt, 
who was previously an entire stranger, he conceived a 
liking for Abraham, and believing he could turn him to 
account, he contracted with him to act as clerk for him, 
on his return from New Orleans, in charge of a store and 
mill at New Salem, then in Sangamon, now in Menard 
County. Hanks had not gone to New Orleans, but hav- 
ing a family, and being likely to be detained from home 
longer than at first expected, had turned back from St. 
Louis. He is the same John Hanks who now engineers 
the "rail enterprise" at Decatur, and is a first cousin to 
Abraham^s mother. Abraham's- father, with his own fam- 
ily and others mentioned, had, in pursuance of their in- 
tention, removed from Macon to Coles County. John D. 
Johnston, the stepmother's son, went to them, and Abra- 
ham stopped indefinitely and for the first time, as it 
were, by himself at New Salem, before mentioned. This 
was in July, 1831. Here he rapidly made acquaintances 
and friends. In less than a year Offutt's business was 
failing — ^had almost failed — when the Black Hawk war 
of 1832 broke out. 

Abraham joined a volunteer company, and, to his own 



AUTOBIOGKAPHIES 35 

surprise, was elected captain of it. He says he has not 
since had any success in life which gave him so much 
satisfaction. He went to the campaign, served near three 
months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, 
but was in no battle. He now owns, in Iowa, the land 
upon which his own warrants for the service were located. 
Heturning from the campaign, and encouraged by his 
great popularity among his immediate neighbors, he the 
same year ran for the legislature, and was beaten, — his 
own precinct, however, casting its votes 277 for and 7 
against him — and that, too, while he was an avowed Clay 
man, and the precinct the autumn afterward giving a 
majority of 115 to General Jackson over Mr. Clay. This 
was the only time Abraham was ever beaten on a direct 
vote of the people. He was now without means and out 
of business, but was anxious to remain with his friends 
who had treated him with so much generosity, especially 
as he had nothing elsewhere to go to. He studied what 
he should do — thought of learning the blacksmith trade — 
thought of trying to study law — rather thought he could 
not succeed at that without a better education. Before 
long, strangely enough, a man offered to sell, and did sell, 
to Abraham and another as poor as himself, an old stock 
of goods, upon credit. They opened as merchants; and 
he says that was the store. Of course they did nothing 
but get deeper and deeper in debt. He was appointed 
postmaster at New Salem — the office being too insignifi- 
cant to make his politics an objection. 

The store winked out. The surveyor of Sangamon of- 
fered to depute to Abraham that portion of his work 
which was within his part of the county. He accepted, 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

procured a compass, and chain, studied Flint and Gibson 
a little, and went at it. This procured bread, and 
kept soul and body together. The election of 1834 came, 
and he was then elected to the legislature by the high- 
est vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, 
then in full practice of the law, was also elected. Dur- 
ing the canvass, in a private conversation he encouraged 
Abraham [to] study law. After the election he borrowed 
books of Stuart, took them home with him, and went 
at it in good earnest. He studied with nobody. He 
still mixed in the surveying to pay board and clothing 
bills. When the legislature met, the law-books were 
dropped, but were taken up again at the end of the 
session. He was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In 
the autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license, and on 
April 15, 1837, removed to Springfield, and commenced 
the practice — ^his old friend Stuart taking him into 
partnership. March 3, 1837, by a protest entered upon 
the ''Illinois House Journal" of that date, at pages 817 
and 818, Abraham, with Dan Stone, another repre- 
sentative of Sangamon, briefly defined his position on the 
slavery question; and so far as it goes, it was then the 
same that it is now. The protest is as follows : 

Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having 
passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present 
session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage 
of the same. 

They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on 
both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of 
Abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its 
evils. 



AUTOBIOGKAPHIES 37 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has 
no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institu- 
tion of slavery in the different States. 

They believe that the Congress of the United States has 
the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be 
exercised unless at the request of the people of the District. 
The difference between these opinions and those contained 
in the above resolutions is their reason for entering this 
protest. 

Dan Stoxe, 
A. Lincoln, 
Representatives from the County of Sangamon. 

In 1838 and 1840, Mr. Lincoln's party voted for him as 
Speaker, but being in the minority he was not elected. 
After 1840 he declined a reelection to the legislature. He 
was on the Harrison electoral ticket in 1840, and on that 
of Clay in 1844, and spent much time and labor in both 
those canvasses. In November, 1842, he was married to 
Mary, daughter of Eobert S. Todd, of Lexington, Ken- 
tucky. They have three living children, all sons, one born 
in 1843, one in 1850, and one in 1853. They lost one, who 
was born in 1846. 

In 1846 he was elected to the lower House of Con- 
gress, and served one term only, commencing in Decem- 
ber, 1847, and ending with the inauguration of General 
Taylor, in March, 1849. All the battles of the Mexican 
war had been fought before Mr. Lincoln took his seat in 
Congress, but the American army was still in Mexico, 
and the treaty of peace was not fully and formally rati- 
fied till the June afterward. Much has been said of his 



38 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

course in Congress in regard to this war. A careful ex- 
amination of the "Journal" and "Congressional Globe" 
shows that he voted for all the supply measures that came 
up, and for all the measures in any way favorable to the 
officers, soldiers, and their families, who conducted the 
war through : with the exception that some of these meas- 
ures passed without yeas and nays, leaving no record as 
to how particular men voted. The "Journal" and 
^^Globe" also show him voting that the war was unneces- 
sarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of 
the United States. This is the language of Mr. Ashmun's 
amendment, for which Mr. Lincoln and nearly or quite 
all other Whigs of the House of Representatives voted. 
Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by this 
vote were briefly that the President had sent General 
Taylor into an inhabited part of the country belonging 
to Mexico, and not to the United States, and thereby had 
provoked the first act of hostility, in fact the commence- 
ment of the war ; that the place, being the country border- 
ing on the east bank of the Rio Grande, was inhabited 
by native Mexicans, bom there under the Mexican gov- 
ernment, and had never submitted to, nor been conquered 
by, Texas or the United States, nor transferred to either 
by treaty ; that although Texas claimed the Rio Grande as 
her boundary, Mexico had never recognized it, and neither 
Texas nor the United States had ever enforced it; that 
there was a hroad desert between that and the country 
over which Texas had actual control; that the country 
where hostilities commenced, having once belonged to 
Mexico, must remain so until it was somehow legally 
transferred, which had never been done. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 39 

Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an armed force 
among the Mexicans was unnecessary, inasmuch as Mex- 
ico was in no way molesting or menacing the United 
States or the people thereof; and that it was unconsti- 
tutional, because the power of levying war is vested in 
Congress, and not in the President. He thought the 
principal motive for the act was to divert public atten- 
tion from the surrender of "Fifty-four, forty, or fight" to 
Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a candidate for reelection. This 
was determined upon and declared before he went to Wash- 
ington, in accordance with an understanding among 
Whig friends, by which Colonel Hardin and Colonel Baker 
had each previously served a single term in this same 
district. 

In 1848, during his term in Congress, he advocated 
General Taylor's nomination for the presidency, in op- 
position to all others, and also took an active part for 
his election after his nomination, speaking a few times 
in Maryland, near Washington, several times in Massa- 
chusetts, and canvassing quite fully his own district in 
Illinois, which was followed by a majority in the district 
of over 1500 for General Taylor. 

Upon his return from Congress he went to the practice 
of the law with greater earnestness than ever before. In 
1852 he was upon the Scott electoral ticket, and did some- 
thing in the way of canvassing, but owing to the hope- 
lessness of the cause in Illinois, he did less than in pre- 
vious presidential canvasses. 

In 1854 his profession had almost superseded the 
thought of politics in his mind, when the repeal of the 



40 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

Missouri Compromise aroused him as he had never been 
before. 

In the autumn of that year he took the stump with 
no broader practical aim or object than to secure, if pos- 
sible, the reelection of Hon. Richard Yates to Congress. 
His speeches at once attracted a more marked attention 
than they had ever before done. As the canvass pro- 
ceeded he was drawn to different parts of the State out- 
side of Mr. Yates's district. He did not abandon the 
law, but gave his attention by turns to that and politics. 
The State agricultural fair was at Springfield that year, 
and Douglas was announced to speak there. 

In the canvass of 1856 Mr. Lincoln made over fifty 
speeches, no one of which, so far as he remembers, was 
put in print. One of them was made at Galena, but Mr. 
Lincohi has no recollection of any part of it being printed ; 
nor does he remember whether in that speech he said any- 
thing about a Supreme Court decision. He may have 
spoken upon that subject, and some of the newspapers 
may have reported him as saying what is now ascribed to 
him; but he thinks he could not have expressed himself 
as represented. 

Memorandum Given to the Artist Hicks (June 14, 1860) 

I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin County, 
Kentucky, at a point within the now county of La Eue, 
a mile, or a mile and a half, from where Hodgen's mill 
now is. My parents being dead, and my own memory not 
serving, I know no means of identifying the precise lo- 
cality. It was on Nolin Creek. 



n 

1836-1853 

Early Principles of Popular Government (June 13, 1836) 

To the Editor of the Journal: — In your paper of last 
Saturday I see a communication, over the signature of 
"Many Voters," in which the candidates who are an- 
nounced in the Journal are called upon to "show their 
hands." Agreed. Here's mine. 

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government 
who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go 
for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay 
taxes or bears arms (by no means excluding females). 

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of San- 
gamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those 
that support me. 

While acting as their representative, I shall be gov- 
erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have the 
means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others 
I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best 
advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go 
for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public 
lands to the several States, to enable our State, in com- 
mon with others, to dig canals and construct railroads 
vithout borrowing money and paying the interest on it 

41 



42 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote 
for Hugh L. White for President. 



Reverence for Law (January 27, 1837) 

As a subject for the remarks of the evening, "The Per- 
petuation of our Political Institutions" is selected. 

In the great journal of things happening under the 
sun, we, the American people, find our account running 
under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian 
era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the 
fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, 
fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find our- 
selves under the government of a system of political in- 
stitutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil 
and religious liberty than any of which the history of 
former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of 
existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these 
fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement 
or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed 
us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now la- 
mented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the 
task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, 
and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to 
uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of 
liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit 
these — the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, 
the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by 
usurpation — to the latest generation that fat© shall per- 
mit the world to know. This task gratitude to our fathers, 
justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our 



1836-1853 43 

species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully 
to perform. 

How then shall we perform it? At what point shall 
we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall 
we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlan- 
tic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a 
blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our 
own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte 
for a commander, could not by force take a drink from 
the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Bidge in a trial 
of a thousand years. 

At what point then is the approach of danger to be 
expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring 
up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruc- 
tion be our lot we must ourselves be its author and fin- 
isher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all 
time, or die by suicide. 

I hope I am over-wary; but if I am not, there is even 
now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean the 
increasing disregard for law which pervades the country 
— the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furi- 
ous passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and 
the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers 
of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any 
community; and that it now exists in ours, though grat- 
ing to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of 
truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny. Ac- 
counts of outrages committed by mobs form the every- 
day news of the times. They have pervaded the country 
from New England to Louisiana; they are neither pe- 



44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

culiar to the eternal snows of the former nor the burning 
suns of the latter; they are not the creature of climate, 
neither are they confined to the slave holding or the non- 
slave holding States. Alike they spring up among the 
pleasure-hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the or- 
der-loving citizens of the land of steady habits. What- 
ever then their cause may be, it is common to the whole 
country. 

But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What has this to 
do with the perpetuation of our political institutions?" 
I answer, It has much to do with it. Its direct conse- 
quences are, comparatively speaking, but a small evil, and 
much of its danger consists in the proneness of our minds 
to regard its direct as its only consequences. . . . But the 
example in either case was fearful. When men take it in 
their heads to-day to hang gamblers or born murderers, 
they should recollect that in the confusion usually attend- 
ing such transactions they will be as likely to hang or 
burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer 
as one who is, and that, acting upon the example they 
set, the mob of to-morrow may, and probably will, hang 
or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And 
not only so: the innocent, those who have ever set their 
faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with 
the guilty fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and 
thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for 
the defence of the persons and property of individuals are 
trodden down and disregarded. . . . Thus, then, by the op- 
eration of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is 
now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any 



1836-1853 45 

government, and particularly of those constituted like 
ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed — I 
mean the attachment of the people. ... At such a time, 
and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and 
ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, 
strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for 
the last half century has been the fondest hope of the lov- 
ers of freedom throughout the world. . . . 

Here, then, is one point at which danger may be ex- 
pected. 

The question recurs. How shall we fortify against it? 
The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover 
of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by 
the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least 
particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate 
their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six 
did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so 
to the support of the Constitution and laws let every 
American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred 
honor. Let every man remember that to violate the law 
is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the 
charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let rever- 
ence for the laws be breathed by every American mother 
to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; let it be taught 
in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be writ- 
ten in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it 
be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative 
halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, 
let it become the political religion of the nation; and let 
the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave 



46 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and con- 
ditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. . . . 

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by 
mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for instance, 
the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is 
necessarily true — that is, the thing is right within itself, 
and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all 
good citizens, or it is wrong, and therefore proper to be 
prohibited by legal enactments ; and in neither case is the 
interposition of mob law either necessary, justifiable, or 
excusable. 

But it may be asked, Why suppose danger to our po- 
litical institutions ? Have we not preserved them for more 
than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times 
as long? 

We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope all 
danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger 
may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous. 
There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dan- 
gerous in their tendency, which have not existed hereto- 
fore, and which are not too insignificant to merit atten- 
tion. . . . 

Another reason which once was, but which, to the same 
extent, is now no more, has done much in maintaining 
our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence 
which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon 
the passions of the people as distinguished from their 
judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and 
avarice incident to our nature, and so common to a state 
of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the 
time in a great measure smothered and rendered inac- 



1836-1853 47 

tive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the 
powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned 
against each other, were directed exclusively against the 
British nation. And thus, from the force of circum- 
stances, the basest principles of our nature were either 
made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in 
the advancement of the noblest of causes — that of es- 
tablishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. 

But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has 
faded, witt the circumstances that produced it. . . . 

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now 
that they have crumbled away that temple must fall un- 
less we, their descendants, supply their places with other 
pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Pas- 
sion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in fu- 
ture be our enemy. Reason — cold, calculating, unimpas- 
sioned reason — must furnish all the materials for our fu- 
ture support and defence. Let those materials be moulded 
into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particu- 
lar, a reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that 
we improved to the last, that we remained free to the last, 
that we revered his name to the last, that during his long 
sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or dese- 
crate his resting place, shall be that which to learn the 
last trump shall awaken our Washington. 

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the 
rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the 
only greater institution, *'the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it." 



48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

On the Stump (December 26, 1839) 

I shall advert to but one more point. Mr. Lamborn 
refers to the late elections in the States, and from their 
results confidently predicts that every State in the Union 
will vote for Mr. Van Buren at the next Presidential elec- 
tion. Address that argument to cowards and to knaves; 
with the free and the brave it will effect nothing. It 
may be true ; if it must, let it. Many free countries have 
lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers ; but if she shall, 
be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, 
but that I never deserted her. I know that the great vol- 
cano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil 
spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of po- 
litical corruption in a current broad and deep, which is 
sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length 
and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed 
no green spot or living thing; while on its bosom are rid- 
ing, like demons on the waves of hell, the imps of that 
evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare re- 
sist its destroying course with the hopelessness of their 
effort; and, knowing this, I cannot deny that all may be 
swept away. Broken by it I, too, may be; bow to it I 
never will. The probability that we may fall in the strug- 
gle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we 
believe to be just; it shall not deter me. If ever I feel 
the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimen- 
sions not wholly unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is 
when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by 
all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and alone, 
and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, 



1836-1853 49 

without contemplating consequences, before high heaven 
and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the 
just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my lib- 
erty, and my love. And who that thinks with me will 
not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? Let none fal- 
ter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, 
after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the 
proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the 
departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause 
approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in 
disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never fal- 
tered in defending. 

A Near View of Slavery (September 27, 1841) 

Miss Mary Speed, Louisville, Ky. 
My Friend: 

******* 

By the way, a fine example was presented on board the 
boat for contemplating the effect of condition upon hu- 
man happiness. A gentleman had purchased twelve ne- 
groes in different parts of Kentucky, and was taking them 
to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six 
together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist 
of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter 
one, at a convenient distance from the others, so that 
the negroes were strung together precisely like so many 
fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being 
separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, 
their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and sisters, and many of them from their wives and 
children, and going into perpetual slavery where the 
lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and un- 
relenting than any other where; and yet amid all these 
distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they 
were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on 
board. One, whose offence for which he had been sold 
was an overfondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost 
continually, and the others danced, sang, cracked jokes, 
and played various games with cards from day to day. 
How true it is that "God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb," or in other words, that he renders the worst of 
human conditions tolerable, while he permits the best to 
be nothing better than tolerable. To return to the nar- 
rative: When we reached Springfield I stayed but one 
day, when I started on this tedious circuit where I now 
am. Do you remember my going to the city, while I was 
in Kentucky, to have a tooth extracted, and making a 
failure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to paining 
me so much that about a week since I had it torn out, 
bringing with it a bit of the jawbone, the consequence of 
which is that my mouth is now so sore that I can neither 
talk nor eat. . . . 



Opinions on Texas (October 3, 1845) 

When I saw you at home, it was agreed that I should 
write to you and your brother Madison. Until I then 
saw you I was not aware of your being what is generally 
called an Abolitionist, or, as you call yourself, a Liberty 



1836-1853 51 

man, though I well knew there were many such in your 
country. 

I was glad to hear that you intended to attempt to 
bring about, at the next election in Putnam, a union of 
the Whigs proper and such of the Liberty men as are 
Whigs in principle on all questions save only that of 
slavery. So far as I can perceive, by such union neither 
party need yield anything on the point in difference be- 
tween them. If the Whig abolitionists of New York had 
voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be President. 
Whig principles in the ascendant, and Texas not annexed ; 
whereas, by the division, all that either had at stake in 
the contest was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely prob- 
able, beforehand, that such would be the result. As I 
always understood, the Liberty men deprecated the an- 
nexation of Texas extremely; and this being so, why they 
should refuse to cast their votes (so) as to prevent it, even 
to me seemed wonderful. What was their process of rea- 
soning, I can only judge from what a single one of them 
told me. It was this: *'We are not to do evil that good 
may come." This general proposition is doubtless cor- 
rect; but did it apply? If by your votes you could have 
prevented the extension, etc., of slavery, would it not have 
been good, and not evil, so to have used your votes, even 
though it involved the casting of them for a slave-holder? 
By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree can- 
not bring forth good fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. 
Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, 
could the act of electing have been evil ? 

But I will not argue further. I perhaps ought to say 
that individually I never was much interested in the 



52 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

Texas question. I never could see much good to come 
of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free re- 
publican people on our own model. On the other hand, 
I never could very clearly see how the annexation would 
augment the evil of slavery. It always seemed to me that 
slaves would be taken there in about equal numbers, with 
or without annexation. And if more were taken because 
of annexation, still there would be just so many the fewer 
left where they were taken from. It is possibly true, to 
some extent, that, with annexation, some slaves may be 
sent to Texas and continued in slavery that otherwise 
might have been liberated. To whatever extent this may 
be true, I think annexation an evil. I hold it to be a 
paramount duty of us in the free States, due to the Union 
of the States, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though 
it may seem), to let the slavery of the other States alone; 
while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear that 
we should never knowingly lend ourselves, directly or in- 
directly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural 
death — to find new places for it to live in, when it can no 
longer exist in the old. Of course I am not now consid- 
ering what would be our duty in cases of insurrection 
among the slaves. To recur to the Texas question, I un- 
derstand the Liberty men to have viewed annexation as 
a much greater evil than ever I did; and I would like to 
convince you, if I could, that they could have prevented it, 
if they had chosen. 

I intend this letter for you and Madison together; and 
if you and he or either shall think fit to drop me a line, I 
shall be pleased. 



1836-1853 63 

Against the Mexican War (December 22, 1847) 

RESOLUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES 

Whereas, The President of the United States, in his 
message of May 11, 1846, has declared that *^the Mexican 
Government not only refused to receive him [the envoy 
of the United States] , or to listen to his propositions, but, 
after a long-continued series of menaces, has at last in- 
vaded our territory and shed the blood of our lellow- 
citizens on our own soil"; 

And again, in his message of December 8, 1846, that 
"we had ample cause of war against Mexico long before 
the breaking out of hostilities; but even then we forbore 
to take redress *nto our own hands until Mexico herself 
became the aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile ar- 
ray, and shedding the blood of our citizens" ; 

And yet again, in his message of December 7, 1847, 
that "the Mexican Government refused even to hear the 
terms of adjustment which he [our minister of peace] 
was authorized to propos3, and finally, under wholly un- 
justifiable pretexts, involved the two countries in war, by 
invading the territory of the State of Texas, striking the 
first blow, and shedding the blood of our citizens on our 
own soil"; 

And whereas. This House is desirous to obtain a full 
knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether 
the particular spot on which the blood of our citizens was 
so shed was or was not at that time our own soil: ther*^- 
fore. 



54 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Resolved, By the House of Representatives, that the 
President of the United States be respectfully requested 
to inform this House — 

First. Whether the spot on which the blood of our 
citizens was shed, as in his message declared, was or was 
not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty 
of 1819, until the Mexican revolution. 

Second. Whether that spot is or is not within the 
territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolu- 
tionary government of Mexico. 

Third. Whether that spot is or is not within a set- 
tlement of people, which settlement has existed ever since 
long bef ore„ the Texas revolution, and until its inhabitants 
fled before the approach of the United States army. 

Fourth. Whether that settlement is or is not isolated 
from any and all other settlements by the Gulf and the 
Rio Grande on the south and west, and by wide uninhab- 
ited regions on the north and east. 

Fifth. Whetlier the people of that settlement, or a ma- 
jority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted them- 
selves to the government or laws of Texas or of the 
United States, by consent or by compulsion, either by 
accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or 
serving on juries, or having process served upon them, 
or in any other way. 

Sixth. Whether the people of that settlement did or 
did not flee from the approach of the United States army, 
leaving unprotected their homes and their growing crops, 
before the blood was shed, as in the message stated; and 
whether the first blood, so shed, was or was not shed within 



1836-1853 55 

the inclosure of one of the people who had thus fled 
from it. 

Seventh. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, 
as in his message declared, were or were not, at that time, 
armed officers and soldiers, sent into that settlement by 
the military order of the President, through the Secre- 
tary of War. 

Eighth. Whether the military force of the United 
States was or was not so sent into that settlement after 
General Taylor had more than once intimated to the 
War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement 
was necessary to the defence or protection of Texas. 

Self -Advice for a Lawyer (July, 1850) 

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much 
material for a lecture in those points wherein I have 
failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately suc- 
cessful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man 
of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for 
to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your 
correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business 
you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor per- 
taining to it which can then be done. When you bring 
a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing so, 
write the declaration at once. If a law point be involved, 
examine the books, and note the authority you rely on 
upon the declaration itself, where you are sure to find it 
when wanted. The same of defenses and pleas. In busi- 
ness not likely to be litigated, — ordinary collection cases, 
foreclosures, partitions, and the like, — make all exam- 



56 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

inations of titles, and note them, and even draft orders 
and decrees in advance. This course has a triple advan- 
tage; it avoids omissions and neglect, saves your labor 
when once done, performs the labor out of court when 
you have leisure, rather than in court when you have not. 
Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and culti- 
vated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. How- 
ever able and faithful he may be in other respects, peo- 
ple are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a 
speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young 
lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If 
any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim 
an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is 
a failure in advance. 

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to 
compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how 
the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, ex- 
penses, and waste of time. As a peace-maker the lawyer 
has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There 
will still be business enough. 

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be 
found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly 
a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of 
deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up 
strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought 
to be infused into the profession which should drive 
such men out of it. 

The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere 
question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended 
to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client. An 
exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a general rule 



1836-1853 57 

never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than 
a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are 
more than a common mortal if you can feel the same in- 
terest in the case, as if something was still in prospect 
for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack 
interest in the case the job will very likely lack skill and 
diligence in the performance. Settle the amount of fee 
land take a note in advance. Then you will feel that you 
are working for something, and you are sure to do your 
work faithfully and well. Never sell a fee note — at least 
not before the consideration service is performed. It 
leads to negligence and dishonesty — negligence by losing 
interest in the case, and dishonesty in refusing to refund 
when you have allowed the consideration to fail. 

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are neces- 
sarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider 
to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and 
conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improb- 
able that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct 
and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost univer- 
sal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for 
a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest 
at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot 
be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being 
a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one 
in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to 
be a knave. 

Advice to a Slack Man (January 2, 1851) 

Dear Johnston: — Your request for eighty dollars I do 
not think it best to comply with now. At the various 



58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, 
''We can get along very well now"; but in a very short 
time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this 
can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What 
that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and 
still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, 
you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. 
You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do 
not work much merely because it does not seem to you 
that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly 
wasting time is the whole difficulty ; it is vastly important 
to you, and still more so to your children, that you should 
break the habit. It is more important to them, because 
they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle 
habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out 
after they are in. 

You are now in need of some money; and what I pro- 
pose is, that you shall go to work, *%oth and nail," for 
somebody who will give you money for it. Let father 
and your boys take charge of your things at home, pre- 
pare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for 
the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you 
owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward 
for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar 
you will, between this and the first of May, get for your 
own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, 
I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you 
hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will 
get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your 
work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. 
Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, 



1836-1853 59 

but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can 
get close to home in Coles County. Now, if you will do 
this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you 
will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt 
again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next 
year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you 
would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or 
\ eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very 
! cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get 
I the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' 
I work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will 
' deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money back, 
' you will deliver possession. Nonsense ! If you can't now 
live with the land, how will you then live without it ? 
You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to 
be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but fol- 
low my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty 
times eighty dollars to you. 

Affectionately your brother, 



m 

1854-1860 
1854 

•'Lost Speech*' on Slavery (May 29, 1854) , 

From the Jteport hy William C. Whitney. 

******* 

> 

; We are here to stand firmly for a principle — to stand 
I firmly for a right. We know that great political and 
moral wrongs are done, and outrages committed, and we 
denounce those wrongs and outrages, although we cannot, 
at present, do much more. But we desire to reach out be- 
yond those personal outrages and establish a^ rule that 
will apply to all, and so prevent any future outrages. 

We have seen to-day that every shade of popular opin- 
ion is represented here, with Freedom, or rather Free Soil, 
as the basis. We have come together as in some sort 
representatives of popular opinion against the extension 
of slavery into territory now free in fact as well as by 
law, and the pledged word of the statesmen of the nation 
who are now no more. We come — we are here assem- 
bled together — to protest as well as we can against a great 
^;^Xong, and to take measures, as well as we now can, to 
make that wrong right; to place the nation, as far as it 

60 



1854-1860 61 

may be possible now, as it was before the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise; and the plain way to do this is 
to restore the Compromise, and to demand and determine 
that Kansas shall he free! . . . There is one desire which 
is uppermost in the mind, one wish common to us all, to 
which no dissent will be made; and I counsel you ear- 
nestly to bury all resentment, to sink all personal feel- 
ing, make all things work to a common purpose in which 
we are united and agreed about, and which all present 
will agree is absolutely necessary — which must be done 
by any rightful mode if there be such: Slavery must he 
kept out of Kansas! The test — the pinch — is right there. 
If we lose Kansas to freedom, an example will be set 
which will prove fatal to freedom in the end. We, there- 
fore, in the language of the Bihle, must "lay the axe to 
the root of the tree." Temporizing will not do longer; 
now is the time for decision — for firm, persistent, reso- 
lute action. . . . 

. . . Here is where the greatest danger lies — that, while 
we profess to be a government of law and reason, law 
will give way to violence on demand of this awful and 
crushing power. Like the great Juggernaut — I think that 
is the name — the great idol, it crushes everything that 
comes in its way, and makes a- — or, as I read once, in a ^ 
blackletter law book, "a slave is a human being who is ■ 
legally not a person but a thing." And if the safeguards I 
t o libert y are broken down, as is now attempted, when 
they have made things of all the free negroes, how long, 
think you, before they will begin to make things of poor 
white men? Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go 
backward. The founder of the Democratic party de- 



62 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

clared that all men were created equal. His successor in 
the leadership has written the word "white" before men, 
making it read "all white men are created equal." Pray, 
will or may not the Know- Nothings, if they should get 
in power, add the word "Protestant," making it read "all 
Protestant white men" 9 . . . 

We grant a fugitive slave law because it is so "nomi- 
nated in the bond"; because our fathers so stipulated — 
had to — and we are bound to carry out this agreement. 
But they did not agree to introduce slavery in regions 
where it did not previous ly exis t. On the contrary, they 
said by their example and teachings that they did not 
deem it expedient — did not consider it right — to do so; 
and it is wise and right to do just as they did about it. 
And that is what w e propo se-^npt to interfere with slavery 
where it exists (we have never tried to do it), and to give 
them a reasonable and efficient fugiti ve slave la w. I say 
YES ! It was part of the bargain, and I'm for living up 
to it; but I go no further; Fm not bound to do more and 
I won't agree any further. * * * 

We have made a good beginning here to-day. As our 
Methodist friends would say, "I feel it is good to be here." 
While extremists may find some fault with the moderation 
of our platform, they should recollect that "the battle "is 
not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift." In 
grave emergencies, mod eratio n is generally safer than rad- 
icalism; and as this struggle is likely to be long and ear- 
nest, we must not, by our action, repel any who are in sym- 
pathy with us in the main, but rather wm_all that we can 
to our standard. We must not belittle nor overlook the 
facts of our condition — that we are new and comparative- 



1854-1860 63 

ly wfiaj^, while our enemies are entrenched and relatively , 
strong. They have the administration and the political 1 
power ; and, right or wrong, at present they have the num- ' 
bers. Our friends who urge an appeal to arms with so 
much force and eloquence should recollect that the gov- „ 
ernment is arrayed against us, and that the numbers are ^' 
now arrayed against us as well ; or, to state it nearer to the 
truth, they are not yet expressly and affirmatively for us; 
and we should repel friends rather than gain them by 
anything savoring of revolutionar y meth ods. As it now 
stands, we must appeal to the sober sens e and patriotism 
of the people. We will make converts day by day ; we will 
grow strong by calmness and moderation; we will grow j 
strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries, i 
And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, | 
we will be in the majority after a while, and then the / 
re volutio n which we will accomplish will be none the less | 
radical from being the result of pacific measures. The ( 
battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery 
is a violation of the eternal_right. We have temporized 
with it from the necessities of our con ditio n ; but as sure 
as God reigns and school children read, THAT BLACK 
FOUL LIE CAN NEVEK BE CONSECKATED INTO 
GOD'S HALLOWED TRUTH! * * * 

Once let slavery get planted in a locality, by ever so 
weak or doubtful a title, and in ever so small numbers, 
and it is like the Canada thistle or Bermuda grass — ^you 
can't root it out. You yourself may detest slavery; but 
your neighbor has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent 
neighbor, or your son has married his daughter, and they 
beg you to help save their property, and you vote against 



64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

your interests and principle to accommodate a neighbor, 
hoping that your vote will be on the losing side. And 
others do the same; and in those ways slavery gets a sure 
foothold. And when that is done the whole mighty Union 
— the force of the nation — is committed to its sup- 
port. * * * 

But in seeking to attain these results — so indispensable 
if the liberty which is our pride and boast shall endure — 
we will be loyal to the Constitution and to the "flag of 
our Union," and no matter what our grievance — even 
though Kansas shall come in as a slave State; and no 
matter what theirs — even if we shall restore the compro- 
mise— WE WILL SAY TO THE SOUTHEEN DIS- 
UNIONISTS, WE WONT GO OUT OF THE UNION, 
AND YOU SHAN'T! * * * 

But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense and patriot- t 
ism of the people, and not to their prejudices; let us 
spread the floods of enthusiasm here aroused all over these 
vast prairies, so suggestive of freedom. * * * There is 
both a power and a magic in popular opinion. To that 
let us now appeal; and while, in all probability, no resort 
to force will be needed, our moderation and forbearance 
will stand us in good stead when, if ever, WE MUST 
MAKE AN APPEAL TO BATTLE AND TO THE, 
GOD OF HOSTS! 

1855 

The Slavery Crisis (August 24, 1855) 

Dear Speed: You know what a poor correspondent I 
am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of 



1854-1860 65 

the 22d of May I have been intending to write you an 
answer to it. You suggest that in political action, now, 
you and I would differ. I suppose we would ; not quite as 
much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike 
slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. 
So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that 
sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially 
at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, 
you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that 
any one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I 
am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also 
acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the 
Constitution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to 
see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and car- 
ried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite 
my lips and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together 
a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville 
to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from 
Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were on board 
ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That 
sight was a continued torment to me, and I see some- 
thing like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other 
slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have 
no interest in a thing which has, and continually exer- 
cises, the power of making me miserable. You ought 
rather to appreciate how much the great body of the 
Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to 
maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. 
I do oppose the extension of slavery because my judgment 
and feeling so prompt me, and I am under no obliga- 
tions to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ. 



66 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

differ we must. You say, if you were President, you 
would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri 
outrages upon the Kansas elections ; still, if Kansas fairly 
votes herself a slave State she must be admitted, or the 
Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself 
a slave State unfairly, that is, by the very means for which 
you say you would hang men? Must she still be ad- 
mitted, or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase 
of the question when it first becomes a practical one. In 
your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the 
slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see you and I would 
differ about the Nebraska law. I look upon that enact- 
ment not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning. 
It was conceived in violence, is maintained in violence, 
and is being executed in violence. I say it was conceived 
in violence, because the destruction of the Missouri Com- 
promise, under the circumstances, was nothing less than 
violence. It was passed in violence, because it could not 
have passed at all but for the votes of many members in 
violence of the known will of their constituents. It is 
maintained in violence, because the elections since clearly 
demand its repeal; and the demand is openly disregarded. 
You say men ought to be hung for the way they are 
executing the law; I say the way it is being executed is 
quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being exe- 
cuted in the precise way which was intended from the 
first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonish- 
ment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public 
man who has been silly enough to believe that anything 
like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely 
undeceived. 



1854-1860 67 

That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with 
it will ask to be admitted into the Union, I take to be 
already a settled question, and so settled by the very 
means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle of 
law ever held by any court North or South, every negro 
taken to Kansas is free; yet, in utter disregard of this, — 
in the spirit of violence merely, — that beautiful legisla- 
ture gravely passes a law to hang any man who shall ven- 
ture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is the 
subject and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they 
should hang upon the gallows of their own building, I 
shall not be among the mourners for their fate. In my 
humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the Mis- 
souri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a Territory, 
and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into 
the Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. I am very 
loath in any case to withhold my assent to the enjoyment 
of property acquired or located in good faith; but I do 
not admit that good faith in taking a negro to Kansas 
to be held in slavery is a probability with any man. Any 
man who has sense enough to be the controller of his own 
property has too much sense to misunderstand the out- 
rageous character of the whole Nebraska business. But 
I digress. In my opposition to the admission of Kansas 
I shall have some company, but we may be beaten. If we 
are, I shall not on that account attempt to dissolve the 
Union. I think it probable, however, we shall be beaten. 
Standing as a unit among yourselves, you can, directly 
and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day, 
as you could on the open proposition to establish a mon- 
archy. Get hold of some man in the North whose posi- 



68 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

tion and ability is such that he can make the support of 
your measure, whatever it may be, a Democratic party 
necessity, and the thing is done. Apropos of this, let me 
tell you an anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska 
bill in January. In February afterward there was a called 
session of the Illinois legislature. Of the one hundred 
members composing the two branches of that body, about 
seventy were Democrats. These latter held a caucus, in 
which the Nebraska bill was talked of, if not formally dis- 
cussed. It was thereby discovered that just three, and 
no more, were in favor of the measure. In a day or two 
Douglas's orders came on to have resolutions passed ap- 
proving the bill; and they were passed by large majori- 
ties! I ! The truth of this is vouched for by a bolting 
Democratic member. The masses, too. Democratic as well 
as Whig, were even nearer unanimous against it; but, as 
soon as the party necessity of supporting it became ap- 
parent, the way the Democrats began to see the wisdom 
and justice of it was perfectly astonishing. 

You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, 
as a Christian you will rejoice at it. All decent slave- 
holders talk that way, and I do not doubt their candor. 
But they never vote that way. Although in a private let- 
ter or conversation you will express your preference that 
Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for Con- 
gress who would say the same thing publicly. No such 
man could be elected from any district in a slave State. 
You think Stringfellow and company ought to be hung; 
and yet at the next presidential election you will vote for 
the exact type and representative of Stringfellow. The 



1854-1860 69 

slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and 
detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate 
the course of all of you, and are as completely your mas- 
ters as you are the master of your own negroes. You in- 
quire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I 
think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, 
and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Wash- 
ington, I voted for the Wilmot proviso as good as forty 
times ; and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig 
me for that. I now do no more than oppose the exten- 
sion of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; that is cer- 
tain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors 
the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes 
of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to 
me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring 
that "all men .are created equal." We now practically 
read it *'all men are created equal, except negroes." 
When the Know-nothings get control, it will read "all men 
are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and 
Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emi- 
grating to some country where they make no pretense 
of loving liberty, — to Russia, for instance, where despot- 
ism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hy- 
pocrisy. 

Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in 
October. My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the 
leading subject of this letter, I have more of her sympathy 
than I have of yours ; and yet let me say I am 
Your friend forever, 



70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Origin of Idea of "Half Slave and Half Free** (August 
15, 1855) 

HON. GEORGE ROBERTSON, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY 

My dear Sir: The volume you left for me has been re- 
ceived. I am really grateful for the honor of your kind 
remembrance, as well as for the book. The partial read- 
ing I have already given it has afforded me much of both 
pleasure and instruction. It was new to me that the ex- 
act question which led to the Missouri Compromise had 
arisen before it arose in r^ard to Missouri, and that you 
had taken so prominent a part in it. Your short but able 
and patriotic speech upon that occasion has not been im- 
proved upon since by those holding the same views, and, 
with all the lights you then had, the views you took ap- 
pear to me as very reasonable. 

You are not a friend to slavery in the abstract. In that 
speech you spoke of "the peaceful extinction of slavery," 
and used other expressions indicating your belief that the 
thing was at some time to have an end. Since then we 
have had thirty-six years of experience; and this experi- 
ence has demonstrated, I think, that there is no peaceful 
extinction of slavery in prospect for us. The signal fail- 
ure of Henry Clay and other good and great men, in 1849, 
to effect anything in favor of gradual emancipation in 
Kentucky, together with a thousand other signs, extin- 
guished that hope utterly. On the question of liberty as a 
principle, we are not what we have been. When we were 
the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, 
we called the maxim that *'all men were created equal" a 



1854-1860 71 

self-evident truth, but now when we have grown fat, and 
have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have be- 
come so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim 
"a self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite 
dwindled away; it is still a great day — for burning fire- 
crackers 1 1 1 

That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of 
slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and 
the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of that 
occasion, nearly half the States adopted systems of eman- 
cipation at once, and it is a significant fact that not a 
single State has done the like since. So far as peaceful 
voluntary emancipation is concerned, the condition of the 
negro slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the con- 
templation of a free mind, is now as fixed and hopeless 
of change for the better as that of the lost souls of the 
finally impenitent. The Autocrat of all the Russias will 
resign his crown and proclaim his subjects free republi- 
cans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily 
give up their slaves. 

Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation con- 
tinue together permanently — forever — half slave and half 
free?" The problem is too mighty for me — may God, in 
his mercy, superintend the solution. Your much obliged 
friend and humble servant, 

1856 

Equality the Central Idea ( , 1856) 

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can 
change public opinion can change the government prac- 



72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tically just so much. Public opinion, on any subject, al- 
ways has a "central idea," from which all its minor 
thoughts radiate. That "central idea" in our political 
public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently 
has continued to be, "the equality of men." And al- 
though it has always submitted patiently to whatever of 
inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual neces- 
sity, its constant working has been a steady progress to- 
ward the practical equality of all men. The late presi- 
dential election was a struggle by one party to discard that 
central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that 
slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of which 
as a central idea may be the perpetuity of human slavery 
and its extension to all countries and colors. Less than 
a year ago the Richmond Enquirer, an avowed advocate 
of slavery, regardless of color, in order to favor his views, 
invented the phrase "State equality," and now the Presi- 
dent, in his message, adopts the Enquirers catch-phrase, 
telling us the people "have asserted the constitutional 
equality of each and all of the States of the Union as 
States." The President flatters himself that the new 
central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it 
is, so far as the mere fact of a presidential election can 
inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the majority 
of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope 
that they never will. All of us who did not vote for Mr. 
Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred 
thousand. But in the late contest we were divided between 
Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the 
future? Let every one who really believes, and is re- 
solved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure. 



1854-1860 73 

and who can conscientiously declare that in the past con- 
test he has done only what he thought best — let every such 
one have charity to believe that every other one can say 
as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differ- 
ences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, 
let us reinaugurate the good old "central ideas'^ of the 
republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; 
God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare 
that ^'all States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citi- 
zens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better 
declaration, including both these and much more, that 
"all men are created equal." 

No Dissolution of the Union ( , 1856) 

You further charge us with being disunionists. If you 
mean that it is our aim to dissolve the Union, I^for my- 
self answer that it is untrue; for those who act with me I 
answer that it is untrue. Have you heard us assert that 
as our aim? Do you really believe that such is our aim? 
Do you find it in our platform, our speeches, our conven- 
tions, or anywhere? If not, withdraw the charge. 

But you may say that though it is not our aim, it will 
be the result, if we succeed, and that we are therefore dis- 
unionists in fact. This is a grave charge you make 
against us, and we certainly have a right to demand that 
you specify in what way we are to dissolve the Union. 
How are we to effect this? 

The only specification offered is volunteered by Mr. 
Fillmore in his Albany speech. His charge is that if we 
elect a President and Vice-President both from the free 



74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

States it will dissolve the Union. This is open folly. 
You do not pretend that it ought to dissolve the Union, 
and the facts show that it won't; therefore the charge 
may be dismissed without further consideration. 

No other specification is made, and the only one that 
could be made is, that the restoration of the restriction 
of 1820 making the United States territory free territory 
would dissolve the Union. Gentlemen, it will require a 
decided majority to pass sucli an act. We, the majority, 
being able constitutionally to do all that we purpose, 
would have no desire to dissolve the Union. Do you say 
that such restriction of slavery would be unconstitutional, 
and that some of the States would not submit to its en- 
forcement? I grant you that an unconstitutional act 
is not a law ; but I do not ask and will not take your con- 
struction of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the 
United States is the tribunal to decide such a question, 
and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also, 
there will be an end of the matter. Will you? If not, 
who are the disunionists, you or we? We, the majority, 
would not strive to dissolve the Union ; and if any attempt 
is made it must be by you, who so loudly stigmatize us as 
disunionists. 

But the Union, in any event, will not be dissolved. We 
don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we won't 
let you. With the purse and sword, the army and navy 
and treasury in our hands and at our command, you could 
not do it. This government would be very weak indeed if 
a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well- 
filled treasury could not preserve itself, when attacked by 
an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All 




LINCOLN IN 1857 



1854-1860 75 

this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug, 
nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve the Union ; 
you shall not. 

1857 

Dred Scott Decision (June 26, 1857) 

And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision 
declares two propositions — ^first, that a negro cannot sue 
in the United States courts; and secondly, that Congress 
cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by 
a divided court — dividing differently on the different 
points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the 
decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example, 
believing I could no more improve on McLean and Cur- 
tis than he could on Taney. 

He denounces all who question the correctness of that 
decision, as offering violent resistance to it. But who re- 
sists it? Who has, in spite of the decision, declared 
Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his master 
over him? 

Judicial decisions have two uses — first, to absolutely de- 
termine the case decided, and secondly, to indicate to the 
public how other similar cases will be decided when they 
arise. For the latter use, they are called "precedents" 
and "authorities." 

We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) 
in obedience to, and respect for, the judicial department 
of government. We think its decisions on constitutional 
questions, when fully settled, should control not only the 
particular cases decided, but the general policy of the 



76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of 
the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. 
More than this would be revolution. But v^e think the 
Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court 
that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and 
we shall do what we can to have it to overrule this. We 
offer no resistance to it. 

Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as 
precedents according to circumstances. That this should 
be so accords both with common sense and the customary 
understanding of the legal profession. 

If this important decision had been made by the unani- 
mous concurrence of the judges, and without any appar- 
ent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public ex- 
pectation and with the steady practice of the departments 
throughout our history, and had been in no part based 
on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, 
if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court 
more than once, and had there been affirmed and reaffirmed 
through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would 
be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce in 
it as a precedent. 

But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these 
claims to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is 
not factious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not 
having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the 
country. * * * 

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all 
white people at the idea of an indiscriminate amalgama- 
tion of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas 
evidently is basing his chief hope upon the chances of 



1854-1860 77 

his being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust 
to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeat- 
ing, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, 
he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He* there- 
fore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the. last 
plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the 
opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Ee- 
publicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence 
includes all men, black as well as white, and forthwith 
he boldly denies that it includes negroes at aB, and pro- 
ceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so 
only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and 
marry with negroes ! He will have it that they cannot be 
consistent else. Now I protest against the counterfeit 
logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black 
woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a 
wife. I need not have her for either. I can just leave 
her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal ; 
but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with 
her own hands, without asking leave of any one else, she 
is my equal and the equal of all others. 

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott 
case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad 
enough to include the whole human family, but he and 
Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument 
did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did 
not at once actually place them on an equality with the 
whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing 
at all, by the other fact that they did not at once, or ever 
afterward, actually place all white people on an equality 
with one another. And this is the staple argument of 



78 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

both the Chief Justice and the Senator for doing this 
obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable language of 
the Declaration. 

I think the authors of that notable instrument intend- 
ed to include all men, but they did not intend to declare 
all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say 
all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, 
or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinct- 
ness in what respects they did consider all men created 
equal — equal with "certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean 
to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually 
enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to 
confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no 
power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to de- 
clare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow 
as fast as circumstances should permit. 



1858 



*'A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" (June 
16, 1858) 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: If 
we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do 
it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was 
initiated with tlie avowed object and confident promise 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
tion of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 



1854-1860 79 

but has constantly augmented. J In my opinion, it will not 
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
^'A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe 
this government cannot endure permanently half slave and 
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I 
do not expect the house to fall — ^but 1 do expect it will 
cease to be divided.^ It will become all one thing, or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it 
shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new. North as well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now 
almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, 
so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and 
the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what 
work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well 
adapted ; but also let him study the history of its construc- 
tion, and trace if he can, or rather fail if he can, to 
trace the evidences of design and concert of action among 
its chief architects, from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more 
than half the States by State constitutions, and from 
most of the national territory by congressional prohibi- 
tion. Four days later commenced the struggle which 
ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This 
opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the 
first point gained. 

But, so far. Congress only had acted; and an indorse- 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ment by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable 
to save the point already gained and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been 
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argu- 
ment of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred 
right of self-government," which latter phrase, though ex- 
pressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was 
so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to 
just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, 
no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument 
was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the lan- 
guage which follows : "It being the true intent and mean- 
ing of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory 
or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to 
the Constitution of the United States." Then opened 
the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter sov- 
ereignty" and "sacred right of self-government." "But," 
said opposition members, *'let us amend the bill so as to 
expressly declare that the people of the Territory may 
exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the meas- 
ure; and down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, 
a law case involving the question of a negro's freedom, by 
reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into 
a free State and then into a Territory covered by the 
congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a 
long time in each, was passing through the United States 
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Ne- 
braska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the 



1854-1860 81 

same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was Dred 
Scott, which name now designates the decision finally 
made in the case. Before the then next presidential elec- 
tion, the law case came to and was argued in the Supreme 
Court of the United States; but the decision of it was 
deferred until after the election. Still, before the elec- 
tion. Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, re- 
quested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state 
his opinion whether the people of a Territory can consti- 
tutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the lat- 
ter answered: "That is a question for the Supreme 
Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the 
indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the sec- 
ond point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short 
of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thou- 
sand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly re- 
liable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his 
last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed 
back upon the people the weight and authority of the in- 
dorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not an- 
nounce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The 
presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of 
the court; but the incoming President in his inaugural 
address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forth- 
coming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few 
days, came the decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early 
occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the 
Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all oppo- 
sition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occa- 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly con- 
strue that decision, and to express his astonishment that 
any different view had ever been entertained I 

At length a squabble springs up between the President 
and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question 
of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was 
not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and 
in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a 
fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether 
slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand 
his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be 
voted down or voted up to be intended by him other than 
as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon 
the public mind — the principle for which he declares he 
has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. 
And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any 
parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle 
is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. 
Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" 
squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary 
scaffolding, — like the mold at the foundry, served through 
one blast and fell back into loose sand, — helped to carry an 
election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint 
struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton 
constitution involves nothing of the original Nebraska 
doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right 
of a people to make their own constitution — upon which 
he and the Republicans have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connec- 
tion with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute 
the piece of machinery in its present state of advancement. 



1854-1860 83 

This was the third point gained. The working points of 
that machinery are: 

(1) That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, 
and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of 
any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Con- 
stitution of the United States. This point is made in or- 
der to deprive the negro in every possible event of the 
benefit of that provision of the United States Consti- 
tution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall 
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens 
in the several States." 

(2) That, "subject to the Constitution of the United 
States," neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can 
exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This 
point is made in order that individual men may fill up the 
Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as 
property, and thus enhance the chances of permanency 
to the institution through all the future. 

(3) That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery 
in a free State makes him free as against the holder, the 
United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be 
decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may 
be forced into by the master. This point is made not to be 
pressed immediately, but, if acquiesced in for a while, 
and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then 
to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's 
master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free 
State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with 
any other one or one thousand slaves in Illinois or in any 
other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with 



84 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to edu- 
cate and mold public opinion, at least Northern public 
opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted 
up. This shows exactly where we now are, and partially, 
also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back 
and run the mind over the string of historical facts already 
stated. Several things will now appear less dark and 
mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The 
people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to 
the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with 
it outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it 
was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision 
to afterward come in, and declare the perfect freedom 
of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the 
amendment expressly declaring the right of the people 
voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it 
would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. 
Why was the court decision held up? Why even a sen- 
ator's individual opinion withheld till after the presiden- 
tial election? Plainly enough now, the speaking out then 
would have damaged the "perfectly free" argument upon 
which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing 
President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the 
delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's 
advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These 
things look like the cautious patting and petting of a 
spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is 
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the 
hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the President 
and others ? 



1854-1860 86 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, 
tie people of a State as well as Territory were to be left 
perfectly free," '^subject only to the Constitution." Why 
lention a State? They were legislating for Territories, 
nd not for or about States. Certainly the people of a 
tate are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of 
le United States ; but why is mention of this lugged into 
lis merely territorial law? Why are the people of a 

erritory and the people of a State therein lumped to- 
ether, and their relation to the Constitution therein 
reated as being precisely the same? While the opinion 
f the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott 
ase, and the separate opinions of all the concurring 
adges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the 
J'nited States neither permits Congress nor a territorial 
jgislature to exclude slavery from any United States 

erritory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same 
Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, 
exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but 
'/ho can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought 
o get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power 
n the people of a State to exclude slavery from their 
imits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declara- 
ion, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the 
iTebraska bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would 
LOt have been voted down in the one case as it had been 
Q the other? The nearest approach to the point of de- 
laring the power of a State over slavery is made by 
rudge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using 
he precise idea, and almost the language too, of the 
"Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is: 



86 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

"Except in cases where the power is restrained by the 
Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is 
supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdic- 
tion." In what cases the power of the States is so re- 
strained by the United States Constitution is left an 
open question, precisely as the same question as to the 
restraint on the power of the Territories was left open 
in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we 
have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, 
see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring 
that the Constitution of the United States does not per- 
mit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this 
may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not 
whether slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain 
upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that 
such a decision can be maintained when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, 
such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon 
us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall 
be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly 
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge 
of making their State free, and we shall awake to the 
reality instead that the Supreme Court has made Illinois 
a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that 
dynasty is the work now before all those who would pre- 
vent that consummation. That is what we have to do. 
How can we best do it? | 

There are those who denounce us openly to their own' 
friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is: 
the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that ob-. 



1854-1860 87 

ject. They wisli us to infer all from the fact that he now 
has a litle quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; 
and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point 
upon which he and we have never differed. They remind 
us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are 
very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living dog 
is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a 
dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless 
one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He 
don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is 
impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. 
A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's 
superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the 
African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to 
revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. 
Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist 
it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right 
of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. 
Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy 
them where they can be bought cheapest? And unques- 
tionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in 
Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the 
whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of prop- 
erty; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave- 

j trade. How can he refuse that trade in that "property" 

j shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it as a protection 
to the home production ? And as the home producers will 

\ probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without 

j a ground of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that 



88 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. 
But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that 
he will make any particular change of which he, himself, 
has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action 
upon any such vague inference? 

Popular Sovereignty (July 10, 1858) 

. . . Popular sovereignty ! everlasting popular sovereign- 
ty! Let us for a moment inquire into this vast matter of 
popular sovereignty. What is popular sovereignty? We 
recollect that at an early period in the history of this 
struggle there was another name for the same thing, — 
"squatter sovereignty." It was not exactly popular sov- 
ereignty, but squatter sovereignty. What do those terms 
mean ? What do those terms mean when used now ? And 
vast credit is taken by our friend the Judge in regard 
to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his 
life have been, and all the future years of his life shall 
be, devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. What 
is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people! What 
was squatter sovereignty? I suppose, if it had any sig- 
nificance at all, it was the right of the people to govern 
themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while they 
were squatted down in a country not their own, while 
they had squatted on a Territory that did not belong to 
them, in the sense that a State belongs to the people 
who inhabit it, — when it belonged to the nation; such 
right to govern themselves was called "squatter sov- 
ereignty." 

Now, I wish you to mark: What has become of that 



1854-1860 89 

squatter sovereignty? What has become of it? Can you 
get anybody to tell you now that the people of a Terri- 
tory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard 
to this mooted question of slavery, before they form a 
State constitution ? No such thing at all ; although there 
is a general running fire, and although there has been 
a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming 
that policy had given the people of a Territory the right 
to govern themselves upon this question, yet the point is 
dodged. To-day it has been decided — no more than a 
year ago it was decided — ^by the Supreme Court of the 
United States, and is insisted upon to-day that the people 
of a Territory have no right to exclude slavery from a 
Territory; that if any one man chooses to take slaves 
into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no right 
to keep them out. This being so, and this decision being 
made one of the points that the Judge approved, and one 
in the approval of which he says he means to keep me 
down, — put me down I should not say, for I have never 
been up, — he says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and 
expects to win his battle on that decision, which says 
that there is no such thing as squatter sovereignty, but 
that any one man may take slaves into a Territory, and 
all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it, 
and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot pro- 
hibit it. When that is so, how much is left of this vast 
matter of squatter sovereignty, I should like to know? 

When we get back, we get to the point of the right 
oi the people to make a constitution. Kansas was settled, 
for example, in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without 
having formed a constitution, in a very regular way, for 



90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

three years. All this time negro slavery could be taken in 
by any few individuals, and by that decision of the Su- 
preme Court, which the Judge approves, all the rest of 
the people cannot keep it out; but when they come to 
make a constitution, they may say they will not have 
slavery. But it is there; they are obliged to tolerate it 
some way, and all experience shows it will be so, for 
they will not take the negro slaves and absolutely deprive 
the owners of them. All experience shows this to be eo. 
All that space of time that runs from the beginning of 
the settlement of the Territory until there is sufficiency 
of people to make a State constitution, — all that portion 
of time popular sovereignty is given up. The seal is ab- 
solutely put down upon it by the court decision, and 
Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that; yet 
he is appealing to the people to give him vast credit for 
his devotion to popular sovereignty. 

Again, when we get to the question of the right of the 
people to form a State constitution as they please, to 
form it with slavery or without slavery, — if that is any- 
thing new, I confess I don't know it. Has there ever 
been a time when anybody said that any other than the 
people of a Territory itself should form a constitution? 
What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have fought 
several years of his life, and pledge himself to fight all the 
remaining years of his life for ? Can Judge Douglas find 
anybody on earth that said that anybody else should 
form a constitution for a people? [A voice, "Yes."] 
Well, I should like you to name him; I should like to 
know who he was. [Same voice, "John Calhoun."] 

Mr. Lincoln: No, sir, I never heard of even John 



1854-1860 91 

alhoun saying such a thing. He insisted on the same 
principle as Judge Douglas; but his mode of applying it, 
n fact, was wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask 
;his crowd whenever a Republican said anything against 
t. They never said anything against it, but they have 
constantly spoken for it; and whoever will undertake 
;o examine the platform, and the speeches o'f responsible 
nen of the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you 
Dlease, will be unable to find one word from anybody 
in the Republican ranks opposed to that popular sover- 
eignty which Judge Douglas thinks that he has invented. 
[ suppose that Judge Douglas will claim, in a little while, 
that he is the inventor of the idea that the people should 
govern themselves; that nobody ever thought of such a 
thing until he brought it forward. We do not remember 
that in that old Declaration of Independence it is said 
that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to 
secure these rights, governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed." There is the origin of popular sovereignty. 
Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he 
invented it? 



Essence of the Beclaration of Independence (July 10, 

1858) 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, 
sometimes about the 4th of July, for some reason or 



92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

other. These 4th of July gatherings I suppose have their 
uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose 
to be some of them. 

We are now a mighty nation; we are thirty or about 
thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about 
one fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We 
run our memory back over the pages of history for about 
eighty-two years, and we discover that we were then a 
very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to 
what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with 
vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men; 
we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to 
us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that 
happened away back, as in some way or other being con- 
nected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of 
men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers' 
and grandfathers; they were iron men; they fought for 
the principle that they were contending for; and W' 
understood that by what they then did it has followed tha 
the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy has com 
to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind our 
selves of all the good done in this process of time, of ho 
it was done and who did it, and how we are historical! 
connected with it; and we go from these meetings ins 
better humor with ourselves, we feel more attached the' 
one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country i 
we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age' 
and race and country in which we live, for these cele4 
brations. But after we have done all this we have noti' 
yet reached the whole. There is something else connected^ 
with it. We have — besides these, men descended by blood 



1854-1860 93 

from our ancestors — among us perhaps half our people 
who are not descendants at all of these men; they are 
men who have come from Europe, — German, Irish, 
French, and Scandinavian, — men that have come from 
Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither 
and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all 
things. If they look back through this history to trace 
their connection with those days by blood, they find they 
have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that 
glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are 
part of us; but when they look through that old Declara- 
tion of Independence, they find that those old men say 
that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal"; and then they feel that that moral 
sentiment, taught in that day, evidences their relation to 
those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in 
them, and that they have a right to claim it as though 
they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the 
men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That 
is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the 
hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that 
will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of free- 
dom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. 

The Freeport Doctrine (August 27, 1858) 

Ladies and Gentlemen: On Saturday last, Judge 
Douglas and myself first met in public discussion. He 
spoke one hour, I an hour and a half, and he replied for 
half an hour. The order is now reversed. I am to speak 
an hour, he an hour and a half, and then I am to reply 



94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

for half an hour. I propose to devote myself during the 
first hour to the scope ol what has brought within the 
range of his half-hour speech at Ottawa. Of course there 
was brought within the scope in that half-hour's speech 
something of his own opening speech. In the course of 
that opening argument Judge Douglas proposed to me 
seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech of an hour 
and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, 
and incidentally, as I thought, intimated to him that I 
would answer the rest of his interrogatories on condition 
only that he should agree to answer as many for me. 
He made no intimation at the time of the proposition, 
nor did he in his reply allude at all to that suggestioi? of 
mine. I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied 
at least half of his reply in dealing with me as though I 
had refused to answer his interrogatories. I now propose 
that I will answer any of the interrogatories, upon condi- 
tion that he will answer questions from me not exceeding 
the same number. I give him an opportunity to respond. 
The Judge remains silent, I now say that I will answer 
his interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; and 
that after I have done so, I shall propound mine to him. 

I have supposed myself, since the organization of the 
Republican party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound 
as a party man by the platforms of the party, then and 
since. If in any interrogatories which I shall answer I 
go beyond the scope of what is within these platforms, it 
will be perceived that no one is responsible but myself. 

Having said thus much, I will take up the Judge's 
interrogatories as I find them printed in the Chicago 
Times, and answer them seriatim. In order that there 



1854-1860 96 

may be no mistake about it, I have copied the interroga- 
tories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first 
one of these interrogatories is in these words : 

Question 1. "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional 
repeal of the Fugitive Slave law?" 

Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor 
of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. 

Q. 2. "I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission 
of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people 
want them?" 

A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against 
the admission of any more slave States into the Union. 

Q. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged 
against the admission of a new State into the Union 
with such a constitution as the people of that State may 
see fit to make?" 

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of 
a new State into the Union, with such a constitution as 
the people of that State may see fit to make. 

Q. 4. "I want to know whether he stands to-day 
pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia?" 

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. 

Q. 5. "I desire him to answer whether he stands 
pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the 
different States?" 

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the 
slave-trade between the different States. 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Q. 6. *^I desire to know whether he stands pledged to 
prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, 
north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?" 

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief 
in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in 
all the United States Territories. 

Q. 7. "I desire him to answer whether he is opposed 
to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is 
first prohibited therein?" 

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition 
of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would 
not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think 
such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery 
question among ourselves. . . . 

I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interroga- 
tories, so far as I have framed them. I will bring for- 
ward a new installment when I get them ready. I will 
bring them forward now only reaching to number four. 

The first one is: 

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means 
entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a 
State constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
under it, before they have the requisite number of in- 
habitants according to the English bill, — some ninety- 
three thousand, — will you vote to admit them? 

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in 
any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the 
United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to 
the formation of a State constitution? 

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall 



1854-1860 • 97 

decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their 
limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and 
following such decision as a rule of political action? 

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional terri- 
tory, in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the 
nation on the slavery question? 

Douglas. The next question propounded to me by Mr. 
Lincoln is. Can the people of a Territory in any lawful 
way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the 
formation of a State constitution? I answer emphat- 
ically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred 
times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion 
the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude 
slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State 
constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that 
question over and over again. He heard me argue the 
Nebraska Bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, 
in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending 
to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It 
matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter 
decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or 
may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the 
people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it 
as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a 
day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local 
police regulations. Those police regulations can only be 
established by the local legislature; and if the people 
are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to 
that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually 



98 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on 
the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor 
its extension. Hence, no matter -what the decision of 
the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still 
the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free 
Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska 
Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory 
on that point. 

Definition of Democracy (August 1, [?] 1858) 

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. 
This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs 
from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. 

Our Defense is the Spirit of Liberty (September 13, 1858) 

My friends, I have endeavored to show you the logical 
consequences of the Dred Scott decision, which holds that 
the people of a Territory cannot prevent the establish- 
ment of slavery in their midst. I have stated, which can- 
not be gainsaid, that the grounds upon which this decision 
is made are equally applicable to the free States as to 
the free Territories, and that the peculiar reasons put 
forth by Judge Douglas for indorsing this decision com- 
mit him, in advance, to the next decision and to all other 
decisions coming from the same source. And when, by 
all these means, you have succeeded in dehumanizing the 
negro; when you have put him down and made it impos- 
sible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when 
you have extinguished his soul in this world and placed 



1854 1860 99 

him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the dark- 
ness of the damned, are you quite sure that the demon 
you have roused will not turn and rend you ? What con- 
stitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence ? 
It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, 
our army and our navy. These are not our reliance 
against tyranny. All o± those may be turned against us 
without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance 
is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. 
Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the 
heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy 
this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at 
your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains 
of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. 
Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have 
lost the genius of your own independence and become the 
tit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among 
you. And let me tell you, that all these things are 
prepared for you by the teachings of history, if the elec- 
tions shall promise that the next Dred Scott decision and 
all future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in by the 
people. 



Come Back to the Declaration of Independence (August 
17, 1858) 

The Declaration of Independence was formed by the 
representatives of American liberty from thirteen States 
of the Confederacy, twelve of which were slave-holding 
communities. We need not discuss the way or the reason 
of their becoming slave-holding communities. It is suffi- 



100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

cient for our purpose that all of them greatly deplored 
the evil and that they placed a provision in the Consti- 
tution which they supposed would gradually remove the 
disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition 
of the slave trade. So general was the conviction, the 
public determination, to abolish the African slave trade, 
that the provision which I have referred to as being 
placed in the Constitution declared that it should not be 
abolished prior to the year 1808. A constitutional pro- 
vision was necessary to prevent the people, through Con- 
gress, from putting a stop to the traffic immediately at the 
close of the war. Now if slavery had been a good thing, 
would the fathers of the republic have taken a step cal- 
culated to diminish its beneficent influences among them- 
selves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? 
These communities, by their representatives in old Inde- 
pendence Hall, said to the whole world of men : *'We hold 
these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights; that among these are life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was their 
majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. 
This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of 
the justice of the Creator to his creatures. Yes, gentlemen, 
to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In 
their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine 
image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden 
on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped 
not only the whole race of man then living, but they 
reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. 
They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their 



1854-1860 101 

children's children, and the countless myriads who should 
inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they 
were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed ty- 
rants, and so they established these great self-evident 
truths, that when in the distant future some man, some 
faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that 
none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but 
Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up 
again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage 
to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that 
truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and 
Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the 
land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and 
circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of 
liberty was being built. 

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines 
conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration 
of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions 
which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate 
the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been 
inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in 
those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of 
liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the 
fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the 
revolution. Think nothing of me — take no thought for 
the political fate of any man whomsoever — ^but come back 
to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. 
You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but 
heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat 
me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to 



102 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

death. While pretending no indifference to earthly- 
honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by some- 
thing higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to 
drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's 
success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is 
nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of 
Humanity — the Declaration of American Independence. 



1859 



The Principles of Jefferson (April 6, 1859) 

. . . Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two 
great political parties were first formed in this country, 
that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them and 
Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious 
and interesting that those supposed to descend politically 
from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be cele- 
brating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, 
while those claiming political descent from him have 
nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere. 

Kemembering, too, that the Jefferson party was formed 
upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights 
of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary 
only, and greatly inferior, and assuming that the so-called 
Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson, and their oppo- 
nents the anti-Jefferson, party, it will be equally interest- 
ing to note how completely the two have changed hands as 
to the principle upon which they were originally sup- 
posed to be divided. The Democracy of to-day hold the 
liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in 




LINCOLN IN 1859 



1854-1860 103 

conflict with another man's right of property; Repub- 
licans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the 
dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar. 

I remember being once much amused at seeing two 
partially intoxicated men engaged in a fight with their 
great-coats on, which fight, after a long and rather harm- 
less contest, ended in each having fought himself out of 
his own coat and into that of the other. If the two lead- 
ing parties of this day are really identical with the two 
in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed 
the same feat as the two drunken men. 

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the prin- 
ciples of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. 
One would state with great confidence that he could 
convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of 
Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail, utterly, 
with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. 
The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms 
of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with 
no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glit- 
tering generalities." Another bluntly calls them "self- 
evident lies." And others insidiously argue that 
they apply to "superior races." These expressions, 
differing in form, are identical in object and effect — the 
supplanting the principles of free government, and re- 
storing those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. 
They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plot- 
ting against the people. They are the vanguard, the 
miners and sappers, of returning despotism. We must re- 
pulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world 
of compensation; and he who would be no slave must 



104 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to 
others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just 
God, cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson — to 
the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for 
national independence by a single people, had the cool- 
ness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere revo- 
lutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all 
men and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day 
and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stum- 
bling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny 
and oppression. 

Your obedient servant. 



Capital and Labor (September 17, 1859) 

. . . Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if 
not all, human comforts and necessities are drawn. There 
is a difference in opinion about the elements of labor in 
society. Some men assume that there is necessary con- 
nection between capital and labor, and that connection 
draws within it the whole of the labor of the community. 
They assume that nobody works unless capital excites 
them to work. They begin next to consider what is the 
best way. They say there are but two ways: one is to 
hire men, and to allure them to labor by their consent; 
the other is to buy the men, and drive them to it, and 
that is slavery. Having assumed that, they proceed to 
discuss the question of whether the laborers themselves 
are better off in the condition of slaves or of hired labor- 
ers, and they usually decide that they are better off 
in the condition of slaves. 



1854-1860 105 

In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mis- 
take. That there is a certain relation between capital 
and labor, I admit. That it does exist, and rightfully 
exists, I think is true. That men who are industrious 
and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests 
should after a while accumulate capital, and after that 
should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also if they 
should choose, when they have accumulated it, to use it to 
save themselves from actual labor, and hire other people 
to labor for them, is right. In doing so they do not 
wrong the man they employ, for they find men who have 
not of their own land to work upon, or shops to work 
in, and who are benefited by working for others, hired 
laborers, receiving their capital for it. Thus a few men, 
that own capital, hire a few others, and these establish 
the relation of capital and labor rightfully, a relation of 
which I make no complaint. But I insist that that rela- 
tion, after all, does not embrace more than one eighth 
of the labor of the country. 

[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, 
with his ability to become an employer, must have every 
precedence over him who labors under the inducement of force. 
He continued:] 

I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you 
to say that we expect upon these principles to ultimately 
beat them. In order to do so, I think we want and must 
have a national policy in regard to the institution of 
slavery that acknowledges and deals with that institution 
as being wrong. Whoever desires the prevention of the 
spread of slavery and the nationalization of that institu- 



106 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

tion yields all when he yields to any policy that either 
recognizes slavery as being right or as being an indifferent 
thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting up 
a policy which shall treat the thing as being wrong. 
When I say this I do not mean to say that this General 
Government is charged with the duty of redressing or 
preventing all the wrongs in the world, but I do think 
that it is charged with preventing and redressing all 
wrongs which are wrongs to itself. This Government is 
expressly charged with the duty of providing for the gen- 
eral welfare. We believe that the spreading out and per- 
petuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general 
welfare. We believe — nay, we know — that that is the 
only thing that has ever threatened the perpetuity of the 
Union itself. The only thing which Fas ever menaced the 
destruction of the government under which we live is this 
very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is providing 
for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ 
from us. We need not make our argument for them, but 
we who think it is wrong in all its relations, or in some 
of them at least, must decide as to our own actions and 
our own course, upon our own judgment. 

I say that we must not interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the States where it exists, because the Con- 
stitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not 
require us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient 
Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, 
as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we 
must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because 
neither the Constitution nor general welfare requires us 
to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the African 



1854-1860 107 

slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial 
slave code. We must prevent each of these things being 
done by either Congresses or courts. The people of these 
United States are the rightful masters of both Con- 
gresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but 
to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. 

To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. 
We must hold conventions; we must adopt platforms, if 
we conform to ordinary custom ; we must nominate candi- 
dates; and we must carry elections. In all these things, 
I think that we ought to keep in view our real purpose, 
and in none do anything that stands adverse to our pur- 
pose. If we shall adopt a platform that fails to recognize 
or express our purpose, or elect a man that declares him- 
self inimical to our purpose, we not only take nothing by 
our success, but we tacitly admit that we act upon no 
other principle than a desire to have "the loaves and 
fishes," by which, in the end, our apparent success is really 
an injury to us. 

I know that this is very desirable with me, as with 
everybody else, that all the elements of the opposition 
shall unite in the next Presidential election and in all 
future time. I am anxious that that should be; but there 
are things seriously to be considered in relation to that 
matter. If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor of 
the union. But suppose we shall take up some man, and 
put him upon one end or the other of the ticket, who 
declares himself against us in regard to the prevention 
of the spread of slavery, who turns up his nose and says 
he is tired of hearing anything more about it, who is 
more against us than against the enemy, what will be the 



108 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

issue ? Why, he will get no slave States, after all, — he has 
tried that already until being beat is the rule for him. 
If we nominate him upon that ground, he will not carry 
a slave State; and not only so, but that portion of our 
men who are high-strung upon the principle we really 
fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a single 
electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of 
Maryland. There is no use in saying to us that we are 
stubborn and obstinate because we won't do some such 
thing as this. We cannot do it. We cannot get our 
men to vote it. I speak by the card, that we cannot give 
the State of Illinois in such case by fifty thousand. We 
would be flatter down than the "Negro Democracy" them- 
selves have the heart to wish to see us. 

After saying this much let me say a little on the other 
side. There are plenty of men in the slave States that 
are altogether good enough for me to be either President 
or Vice-President, provided they will profess their sym- 
pathy with our purpose, and will place themselves on the 
ground that our men, upon principle, can vote for them. 
There are scores of them, good men in their character 
for intelligence and talent and integrity. If such a one 
will place himself upon the right ground, I am for his 
occupying one place upon the next Republican or opposi- 
tion ticket. I will heartily go for him. But unless he 
does so place himself, I think it a matter of perfect non- 
sense to attempt to bring about a union upon any other 
basis; that if a union be made, the elements will scatter 
so that there can be no success for such a ticket, nor any- 
thing like success. The good old maxims of the Bible are 
applicable, and truly applicable, to human affairs, and in 



1854-1860 109 

this, as in other things, we may say here that he who is 
not for us is against us; he who gathereth not with us, 
scattereth. I should be glad to have some of the many 
good and able and noble men of the South to place them- 
selves where we can confer upon them the high honor of 
an election upon one or the other end of our ticket. It 
would do my soul good to do that thing. It would enable 
us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of their 
own number to carry out our principles, we are free from 
the charge that we mean more than we say. 

But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than 
I expected to do. I believe I may do myself the compli- 
ment to say that you have stayed and heard me with 
great patience, for which I return you my most sincere 
thanks. 

1860 

An Appeal to the South (Cooper Institute, February 27, 

1860) 

. . . And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they 
will not — I would address a few words to the Southern 
people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves a reason- 
able and a just people; and I consider that in the 
general qualities of reason and justice you are not 
inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of 
us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as rep- 
tiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You 
will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing 
like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions 



110 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

with one another, each of you deems an unconditional 
condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first 
thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of 
us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — ^license, so 
to speak — among you, to be admitted or permitted to 
speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to 
pause, and to consider whether this is quite just to us, 
or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges 
and specifications, and then be patient long enough to 
hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an 
issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce 
your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no 
existence in your section — gets no votes in your section. 
The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the 
issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change 
of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should 
thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this 
conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If 
you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased 
to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this 
very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth 
plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The 
fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of 
your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in 
that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so 
until you show that we repel you by some wrong prin- 
ciple or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong prin- 
ciple or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you 
to where you ought to have started — to a discussion of 
the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put 



1854-1860 111 

n practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of 
►urs, or for any other object, then our principle, and we 
vith it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and de- 
lounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of 
vhether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your 
.ection; and so meet us as if it were possible that some- 
;hing may be said on our side. Do you accept the chal- 
enge? No! Then you really believe that the principle 
vhich "our fathers who framed the Government under 
vhich we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and 
ndorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is 
n fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation 
vithout a moment's consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning 
igainst sectional parties given by Washington in his 
Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Wash- 
ington gave that warning, he had, as President of the 
CTnited States, approved and signed an act of Congress 
enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern 
Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Govem- 
Qient upon that subject up to, and at, the very moment 
Ibe penned that warning; and about one year after he 
penned it, he wrote La Fayette that he considered that 
prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same con- 
lection his hope that we should at some time have a 
confederacy of free States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has 
[since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a 
weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against 
!you ? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the 
iblame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, 



112 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

or upon you, who repudiate it? We respect that warning 
of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with 
his example pointing to the right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently conserva- 
tive — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or some- 
thing of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not ad- 
herence to the old and tried, against a new and untried? 
We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the 
point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers 
who framed the Government under which we live"; while 
you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that 
old policy and insist upon substituting something new. 
True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that sub- 
stitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions 
and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and de- 
nouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are 
for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congres- 
sional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress 
forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within their 
limits; some for maintaining slavery in the Territories: 
through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinci- 
ple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third 
man should object," fantastically called "popular sover 
eignty" ; but never a man among you in favor of Federal 
prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according 
to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Govern- 
ment under which we live." Not one of all your various 
plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century 
within which our Government originated. Consider, them 
whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, anc 



1854-1860 113 

your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on 
the most clear and stable foundations. 

Again: You say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We 
admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we 
made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the 
old policy of the fathers. We resisted and still resist 
your innovation ; and thence comes the greater prominence 
of the question. Would you have that question reduced 
to its former proportions? Go gack to that old policy. 
What has been will be again, under the same conditions. 
If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt 
the precepts and policy of the old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's 
Ferry ! John Brown ! ! John Brown was no Republican ; 
and you have failed to implicate a single Kepublican in 
his Harper^s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our 
party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do 
not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for 
not designating the man and proving the fact. If you 
do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and 
especially for persisting in the assertion after you have 
tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be 
told that persisting in a charge which one does not 
know to be true is simply malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided 
or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist 
that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to 
such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold 
to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not 



114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Gov- 
ernment under which we live." You never dealt fairly 
by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some 
important State elections were near at hand, and you 
were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the 
blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those 
elections. The elections came, and your expectations 
were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew 
that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, 
and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in 
your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are 
accompanied with a continued protest against any inter- 
ference whatever with your slaves, or with you about 
your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to 
revolt. True, we do, in common with "our fathers, who 
framed the Government under which we live," declare 
our belief that slavery is wrong ; but the slaves do not hear 
us declare even this. For any thing we say or do, the 
slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. 
I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but 
for your misrepresentations of us in their hearing. In 
your political contests among yourselves, each faction 
charges the other with sympathy with Black Republican- 
ism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black 
Itepublicanism to simply be insurrection, blood, and thun- 
der among the slaves. '• 
Slave insurrections are no more common now than they 
were before the Republican party was organized. What 
induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years 
ago, in which, at least, three times as many lives were 
lost as at Harper's Ferry ? You can scarcely stretch your 



1854-1860 115 

very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was 
*'got up by Black Republicanism.'^ In the present state 
of things in the United States, I do not think a general 
or even a very extensive slave insurrection is possible. 
The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. 
The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor 
can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The 
explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there 
neither are, nor can be supplied the indispensable con- 
necting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of 
slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of 
it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely 
be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before 
some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master 
or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the 
slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but 
a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. The gun- 
powder plot of British history, though not connected 
with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about 
twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, 
in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that 
friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occa- 
sional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy 
assassinations in the field, and local revolts, extending to 
a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results 
of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I 
think, can happen in this country for a long time. Who- 
ever much fears or much hopes for such an event will 
be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 



116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ago, "It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such slow 
degrees as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their 
places be, yari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, 
on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature 
must shudder at the prospect held up." 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the 
power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. 
He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emancipa- 
tion, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The Fed- 
eral Government;, however, as we insist, has the power 
of restraining the extension of the institution — the power 
to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on 
any American soil which is now free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up 
a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to 
participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, 
with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not 
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with 
the many attempts related in history at the assassination 
of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the 
oppression of a people till he fancies himself commis- 
sioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the 
attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. 
O.rsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's 
attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, pre- 
cisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old Eng- 
land in the one case, and on New England in the other, 
does not disprove the sameness of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by 



1854-1860 117 

the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break 
up the Republican organization? Human action can be 
modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be 
changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against 
slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and 
a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and 
feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political or- 
ganization which rallies around it. You can scarcely 
scatter and disperse an army which has been formed 
into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you 
could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment 
which created it out of the peaceful channel of the 
ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that 
other channel probably be? Would the number of John 
Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to 
a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be 
palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by 
the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right 
plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are 
proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations, you have a spe- 
cific and well-understood allusion to an assumed consti- 
tutional right of yours to take slaves into the Federal 
Territories, and to hold them there as property. But no 
such right is specifically written in the Constitution. 
That instrument is literally silent about any such right. 
We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any ex- 
istence in the Constitution, even by implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will 



118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

destroy the Government unless you be allowed to construe 
and enforce the Constitution as you please on all points 
in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin, in 
all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you 
will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed con- 
stitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But, 
waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and de- 
cision, the court have decided the question for you in a 
sort of a way. The court have substantially said it is 
your constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal 
Territories and to hold them there as property. When I 
say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it 
was made in a divided court, by a bare majority of the 
judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in 
the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its 
avowed supporters disagree with one another about its 
meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken 
statement of fact — the statement in the opinion that 
"the right of property in a slave is distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the 
right of property in a slave is not ''distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not 
pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly 
affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their verac- 
ity that it is ''distinctly and expressly" affirmed there — 
"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else; 
"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without 
the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other 
meaning. 



1854-1860 119 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, 
it would be open to others to show that neither the word 
^"slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, 
nor the word "property" even, in any connection with 
language alluding to the things slave or slavery; and 
that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, 
he is called a "person"; and wherever his master's legal 
right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as 
"service or labor which may be due," as a debt payable in 
^service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by con- 
temporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves 
and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed 
on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea 
that there could be property in man. 

To show all this, is easy and certain. 
. When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and re- 
consider the conclusion based upon it? 

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who 
framed the Government under which we live" — the men 
who made the Constitution — decided this same constitu- 
tional question in our favor, long ago; decided it without 
iivision among themselves, when making the decision, 
without division among themselves about the meaning of 
it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, 
without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel your- 
selves justified to break up this Government unless such 
a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted 



120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to as a conclusive and final rule of political action ? But 
you will not abide the election of a Republican President ! 
In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the 
Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having de- 
stroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman 
holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, 
"Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will 
be a murderer!" 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money 
— was my own, and I had a clear right to keep it; but it 
was no more my own than my vote is my own; and| 
the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the 
threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, 
can scarcely be distinguished in principle. 

A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly 
desirable that all parts of this great confederacy shall he 
at peace and in harmony one with another. Let us Re- 
publicans do our part to have it so. Even though much 
provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill tem- 
per. Even though the Southern people will not so much 
as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and 
yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we 
possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by 
the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let' 
us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi- 
tionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. 
In all their present complaints against us, the Terri- 
tories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrec- 
tions are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the; 
future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insur- 



1854-1860 121 

rections? We know it will not. We so know because 
we know we never had anything to do with invasions and 
insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not ex- 
empt us from the charge and the denunciation. 

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply 
this : We must not only let them alone, but we must, some- 
how, convince them that we do let them alone. This, 
we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been 
so trying to convince them from the very Ijeginning of 
our organization, but with no success. In all our plat- 
forms and speeches we have constantly protested our 
purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency 
to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is 
the fact that they have never detected a man of us in 
any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all fail- 
ing, what will convince them ? This, and this only : cease 
to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. 
And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as 
in words. Silence will not be tolerated — We must place 
ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new 
sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing 
all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in 
politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must 
arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleas- 
ure. We must pull down our free State constitutions. 
The wholo atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint 
of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe 
that all their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely 
in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



I 



US alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about 
slavery." But we do let them alone — have never dis- 
turbed them — so that after all it is what we say which 
dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of 
doing, until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet, in terms, de- 
manded the overthrow of our free State constitutions. 
Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with 
more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against 
it; and when all these other sayings shall have been 
silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be 
demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It 
is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand thej 
whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and 
for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere! 
short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that 
slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they can- 
not cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a 
legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is 
right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it 
are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept 
away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nation- 
ality — its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justlj 
insist upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask 
we could readily grant if we thought slavery right; all we 
ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. 
Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the 
precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. 



1854-1860 123 

Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for 
desiring its full recognition, as being right; but think- 
ing it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we 
cast our votes with their view, and against our own ? In 
view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, 
can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let 
it alone where it is, because that much is due to the 
necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation;, 
but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us. 
here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids 
this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effec- 
tively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical 
contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and 
belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle 
ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the 
search for a man who should be neither a living man nor 
a dead man — such as a policy of "don't care" on a ques- 
tion about which all true men do care — such as Union 
appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunion- 
ists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, 
but the righteous to repentance — such as invocations to 
Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington 
said, and undo what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces 
of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to our- 
selves. Let us have faith that Eight makes Might, 

AND IN that faith LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR 
DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT. 



124 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Labor's Interest Against Slavery ( , 1860) 

. . . Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that *'shoe 
strike." Now be it understood that I do not pretend to 
know all about the matter. I am merely going to specu- 
late a little about some of its phases. And at the outset, 
I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New 
England under which laborers can strike when they want 
to, where they are not obliged to work under all circum- 
stances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor 
whether you pay them or not! I like the system which 
lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might 
prevail everywhere. One of the reasons why I am opposed 
to slavery is just here. What is the true condition of the 
laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave each 
man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some 
will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a 
man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. 
So, while we do not propose any war upon capital, we 
do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to 
get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as 
most do in the race of life, free society is such that he 
knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is 
no fixed condition of labor for his whole life. I am not 
ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a 
hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat — just 
what might happen to any poor man's son ! I want every 
man to have a chance — and I believe a black man is 
entitled to it — in which he can better his condition ; when 
he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this 
year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally 



1854-1860 125 

to hire men to work for him! That is the true system. 
Up here in New England, you have a soil that scarcely 
sprouts black-eyed beans, and yet where will you find 
wealthy men so wealthy, and poverty so rarely in extrem- 
ity? There is not another such place on earth! I desire 
that if you get too thick here, and find it hard to better 
your condition on this soil, you may have a chance to 
strike and go somewhere else, where you may not be de- 
graded, nor have your families corrupted, by forced riv- 
I airy with negro slaves. I want you to have a clean bed 
f and no snakes in it! Then you can better your condi- 
tion, and so it may go on and on in one ceaseless round 
so long as man exists on the face of the earth ! 
I Now, to come back to this shoe strike, — if, as the sen- 
I ator from Illinois asserts, this is caused by withdrawal 
of Southern votes, consider briefly how you will meet 
,' the difficulty. You have done nothing, and have protested 
that you have done nothing, to injure the South. And 
yet, to get back the shoe trade, you must leave off doing 
something which you are now doing. What is it? You 
must stop thinking slavery wrong ! Let your institutions 
be wholly changed; let your State constitutions be sub- 
verted; glorify slavery, and so you will get back the 
shoe trade — for what? You have brought owned labor 
I with it, to compete with your own labor, to underwork 
you, and to degrade you ! Are you ready to get back the 
trade on those terms? 

But the statement is not correct. You have not lost 
that trade; orders were never better than now! Senator 
Mason, a Democrat, comes into the Senate in homespun, 
a proof thnt the dissohition of the Union has actually 



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

begun! but orders are the same. Your factories have 
not struck work, neither those where they make anything 
for coats, nor for pants, nor for shirts, nor for ladies' 
dresses. Mr. Mason has not reached the manufacturers 
who ought to have made him a coat and pants ! To make 
his proof good for anything he should have come into 
the Senate barefoot! 

Another bushwhacking contrivance; simply that, noth- 
ing else! I find a good many people who are very much 
concerned about the loss of Southern trade. Now either 
these people are sincere or they are not. I will speculate 
a little about that. If they are sincere, and are moved by 
any real danger of the loss of Southern trade, they will 
simply get their names on the white list, and then, instead 
of persuading Republicans to do likewise, they will be 
glad to keep you away! Don't you see that they cut off 
competition? They would not be whispering around to 
Republicans to come in and share the profits with them. 
But if they are not sincere, and are merely trying to fool 
Republicans out of their votes, they will grow very anxious 
about your pecuniary prospects; they are afraid you are 
going to get broken up and ruined; they do not care 
about Democratic votes, oh, no, no, no ! You must judge 
which class those belong to whom you meet : I leave it to 
you to determine from the facts. 

Knownothingism (July 21, 1860) 

My dear Sir: — Yours of the 20th is received. I sup- 
pose as good or even better men than I may have been 
in American or Know-Nothing lodges; but in point of 



1854-1860 127 

fact, I never was in one at Quincy or elsewhere. I was 
never in Quincy but one day and two nights while Know- 
Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me 
that day and both those nights. I had never been there 
before in my life, and never afterwards, till the joint 
debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854 when I 
spoke in some hall there, and after the speaking, you, with 
others, took me to an oyster-saloon, passed an hour there, 
and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the 
Quincy House, quite late at night. I left by stage for 
Naples before daylight in the morning, having come in 
by the same route after dark the evening previous to the 
speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House 
to meet me. A few days after I was there, Richardson, 
as I understood, started this same story about my having 
been in a Know- Nothing lodge. When I heard of the 
charge, as I did soon after, I taxed my recollection for 
some incident which could have suggested it; and I re- 
membered that on parting with you the last night I went 
to the office of the hotel to take my stage-passage for 
the morning, was told that no stage-office for that line 
was kept there, and that I must see the driver before 
retiring, to insure his calling for me in the morning; 
and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who, 
after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped 
perhaps a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called 
to some one, who answered him, apparently from the 
upper part of a building, and promised to call with the 
stage for me at the Quincy House. I returned, and went 
to bed, and before day the stage called and took me. 
This is all. 



128 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, 
I should expect could be easily proved by respectable men 
who were always in the lodges and never saw me there. 
An affidavit of one or two such would put the matter at 
rest. 

And now a word of caution. Our adversaries think 
they can gain a point if they could force me to openly 
deny the charge, by which some degree of offence would 
be given to the Americans. For this reason it must not 
publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the 
charge. 

Elected President 

To the Springfield Meeting (November 20, 1860) 

Friends and Fellow-citizens : Please excuse me on this 
occasion from making a speech. I thank you in common 
with all those who have thought fit by their votes to in- 
dorse the Eepublican cause. I rejoice with you in the suc- 
cess which has thus far attended that cause. Yet in all 
our rejoicings let us neither express nor cherish any 
hard feelings toward any citizen who by his vote has 
differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all 
American citizens are brothers of a common country and 
should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling. 
Let me again beg you to accept my thanks, and to excuse 
me from further speaking at this time. 



To Washburne (December 13, 1860) 

My Dear Sir: Your long letter received. Prevent, as 

far as possible, any of our friends from demoralizing 



1854-1860 129 

themselves and our cause by entertaining propositions for 
compromise of any sort on "Slavery extension." There 
is no possible compromise upon it but which puts us 
under again, and leaves all our work to do over again. 
Whether it be a Missouri line or Eli Thayer's popular 
sovereignty, it is all the same. Let either be done, and 
immediately filibustering and extending slavery recom- 
mences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of 
steel. 

To Run the Machine as It is (December 17, 1860) 

To Weed 

My Dear Sir: Yours of the 11th was received two 
days ago. Should the convocation of governors of which 
you speak seem desirous to know my views on the present 
aspect of things, to tell them you judge from my speeches 
that I will be inflexible on the territorial question; but 
I probably think either the Missouri line extended, or 
Douglas's and Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty would 
lose us everything we gain by the election ; that filibuster- 
ing for all south of us and making slave States of it would 
follow in spite of us, in either case; also that I probably 
think all opposition, real and apparent, to the fugitive 
slave clause of the Constitution ought to be withdrawn. 

I believe you can pretend to find but little, if anything, 
in my speeches about secession. But my opinion is that 
no State can in any way lawfully get out of the Union 
without the consent of the others ; and that it is the duty 
of the President and other government functionaries to 
run the machine as it is. 



130 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

The Basis of Compromise (December 22, 1860) 

Memorandum 
Resolved: 

That the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution ought 
to be enforced by a law of Congress, with efficient pro- 
visions for that object, not obliging private persons to 
assist in its execution, but punishing all who resist it, 
and with the usual safeguards to liberty, securing free 
men against being surrendered as slaves. 

That all State laws, if there be such, really or appar- 
ently in conflict with such law of Congress, ought to be 
repealed; and no opposition to the execution of such law 
of Congress ought to be made. 

That the Federal Union must be preserved. 



IV 

1861-1865 

1861 
The State of the Union (February 11, 22, 1861) 

{Springfield, February 11) 

My Friends : One who has never been placed in a like 
position cannot understand my feelings at this hour, nor 
the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more 
than twenty-five years I have lived among you, and 
during all that time I have received nothing but kindness 
at your hands. Here the most cherished ties of earth were 
assumed. Here my children were born, and here one of 
them lies buried. To you, my friends, I owe all that I 
have — all that I am. All the strange checkered past seems 
to crowd upon my mind. To-day I leave you. I go to 
assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon 
General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted 
him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if 
the same almighty arm that directed and protected him 
shall guide and support me I shall not fail; I shall suc- 
ceed. Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not 
forsake us now. To Him I commend you all. Permit me 

131 



132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all in- 
voke His wisdom and goodness for me. 

With these words I must leave you; for how long I 
know not. Friends, one and all, I must now wish you an 
affectionate farewell. 



(Indianapolis, February 11) 

Most heartily do I thank you for this magnificent recep- 
tion, and while I cannot take to myself any share of the 
compliment thus paid, more than that which pertains 
to a mere instrument, an accidental instrument, perhaps 
I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look upon it as 
a most magnificent reception and as such most heartily 
do thank you for it. You have been pleased to address 
yourself to me chiefly in behalf of this glorious Union in 
which we live, in all of which you have my hearty sym- 
pathy, and, as far as may be within my power, will have, 
one and inseparable, my hearty consideration. While I 
do not expect, upon this occasion, or until I get to Wash- 
ington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I will only say to 
the salvation of the Union there needs but one single 
thing — the hearts of a people like yours. 

The people — when they rise in mass in behalf of the 
Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be 
said, "The gates of hell cannot prevail against them." In 
aU trying positions in which I shall be placed — and, doubt- 
less, I shall be placed in many such — my reliance will 
be placed upon you and the people of the United States; 
and I wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is 
your business, and not mine; that if the union of these 



1861-1865 133 

States and the liberties of this people shall be lost, it is 
but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but 
a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit 
these United States, and to their posterity in all coming 
time. It is your business to rise up and preserve the 
Union and liberty for yourselves, and not for me. 

I desire they should be constitutionally performed. I, 
as already intimated, am but an accidental instrument, 
temporary, and to serve but a limited time; and I appeal 
to you again to constantly bear in mind that with you, 
and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with 
office-seekers, but with you is the question. Shall the 
Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved 
to the latest generations ? 

(Indianapolis, February 12) 

. . . Solomon says there is "a time to keep silence," 
and when men wrangle by the mouth with no certainty 
that they mean the same thing while using the same word, 
it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence. 

The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used 
in these days, and often with some temper and hot blood. 
Let us make sure, if we can, the meaning of those who 
use them. Let us get the exact definitions of these 
words, not from dictionaries, but from the men them- 
selves, who certainly deprecate the things they would rep- 
resent by the use of the words. 

What, then, is coercion? What is invasion? Would 

the marching of an army into South Carolina, without 

, the consent of her people, and with hostile intent toward 



134 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

them, be invasion? I certainly think it would, and it 
would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians were 
forced to submit. But if the United States should merely 
hold and retake its own forts and other property, and col- 
lect the duties on foreign importations, or even withhold 
the mails from places where they were habitually vio- 
lated, would any or all or these things be invasion or co- 
ercion ? Do our professed lovers of the Union, who spite- 
fully resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, 
understand that such things as these, on the part of the 
United States, would be coercion or invasion of a State? 
If so, their idea of means to preserve the object of their 
great affection would seem to be exceedingly thin and 
airy. If sick, the little pills of the homceopathist would 
be much too large for it to swallow. In their view, the 
Union, as a family relation, would seem to be no regu- 
lar marriage, but rather a sort of "free-love" arrange- 
ment, to be maintained on passional attraction. 

By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of 
a State? I speak not of the position assigned to a State 
in the Union by the Constitution, for that is a bond we 
all recognize. That position, however, a State cannot 
carry out of the Union with it. I speak of that assumed 
primary right of a State to rule all which is less than 
itself, and to ruin all which is larger than itself. If a 
State and a county, in a given case, should be equal in 
number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of princi- 
ple, is the State better than the county? Would an 
exchange of name be an exchange of rights ? Upon what 
principle, upon what rightful principle, may a State, be- 
ing no more than one fiftieth part of the nation in soil 



1861-1865 135 

and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a 
proportionably large subdivision of itself in the most arbi- 
trary way ? What mysterious right to play tyrant is con- 
ferred on a district of country, with its people, by merely 
calling it a State? Fellow-citizens, I am not asserting 
anything. I am merely asking questions for you to con- 
sider. And now allow me to bid you farewell. . . . 

Cincinnati {Fehruary 12) 

I deem it my duty — a duty which I owe to my con- 
stituents — to you, gentlemen, that I should wait until the 
last moment for a development of the present national 
difficulties before I express myself decidedly as to what 
course I shall pursue. I hope, then, not to be false to any- 
thing that you have expected of me. 

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working 
men are the basis of all governments, for the plain rea- 
son that they are all the more numerous, and as you added 
that those were the sentiments of the gentlemen present, 
representing not only the working class, but citizens of 
other callings than those of the mechanic, I am happy to 
concur with you in these sentiments, not only of the na- 
tive-bom citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners 
from other countries. 

Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists it is his 
duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist 
in ameliorating the condition of mankind; and therefore, 
without entering upon the details of the question, I will 
simply say that I am for those means which will give the 
greatest good to the greatest number. 



136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

In regard to the Homestead law, I have to say that, in 
so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in 
favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels, so that 
every poor man may have a home. 

In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them 
no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my 
nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight 
of their shackles — the oppression of tyranny — to make 
their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater bur- 
dens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the 
yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them. 

Inasmuch as our own country is extensive and new, 
and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if 
there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of 
their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in 
their way to prevent them from coming to the United 
States. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will bid you an affec- 
tionate farewell. 



Columbus {February 13) 

... I am deeply sensible of that weighty responsibility. 
I cannot but know what you all know, that without a 
name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a 
name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did not 
rest even upon the Father of his Country ; and so feeling, 
I can turn and look for that support without which it 
will be impossible for me to perform that great task. I 
turn, then, and look to the American people and to that 
God who has never forsaken them. . . . 



1861-1865 137 

Steuhenville (Fehnmry IJf) 

I fear that the great confidence placed in my ability is 
unfounded. Indeed, I am sure it is. Encompassed by 
vast difficulties as I am, nothing shall be wanting on my 
part, if sustained by God and the American people. I 
believe the devotion to the Constitution is equally great 
on both sides of the river. It is only the different un- 
derstanding of that instrument that causes difficulty. The 
only dispute on both sides is, *'What are their rights?" 
If the majority should not rule, who would be the judge? 
Where is such a judge to be found? We should all be 
bound by the majority of the American people; if not, 
then the minority must control. Would that be right? 
Would it be just or generous? Assuredly not. I reiter- 
ate that the majority should rule. If I adopt a wrong 
policy, the opportunity for condemnation will occur in 
four years' time. Then I can be turned out, and a bet- 
ter man with better views put in my place. 

Fittsburgh {February 15) 

, . . Allusion has been made to the present distracted 
condition of the country. It is natural to expect that 
I should say something on this subject ; but to touch upon 
it at all would involve an elaborate discussion of a great 
many questions and circumstances, requiring more time 
than I can at present command, and would, perhaps, un- 
necessarily commit me upon matters which have not yet 
fully developed themselves. The condition of the country 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is an extraordinary one, and fills the mind of eveiy pa- 
triot with anxiety. It is my intention to give this sub- 
ject all the consideration I possibly can before specially 
deciding in regard to it, so that when I do speak it may 
be as nearly right as possible. When I do speak I hope 
I may say nothing in opposition to the spirit of the Con- 
stitution, contrary to the integrity of the Union, or which 
will prove inimical to the liberties of the people, or to 
the peace of the whole country. And furthermore, when 
the time arrives for me to speak on this great subject, I 
hope I may say nothing to disappoint the people gener- 
ally throughout the country, especially if the expectation 
has been based upon anything which I may have hereto- 
fore said. Notwithstanding the troubles across the river 
(the speaker pointing southwardly across the Mononga- 
hela, and smiling), there is no crisis but an artificial one. 
What is there now to warrant the condition of affairs pre- 
sented by our friends over the river? Take even their 
own view of the questions involved, and there is nothing 
to justify the course they are pursuing. I repeat, then, 
there is no crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten 
up at any time by turbulent men aided by designing poli- 
ticians. My advice to them, under such circumstances, 
is to keep cool. If the great American people only keep 
their temper on both sides of the line, the troubles will 
come to an end, and the question which now distracts the 
country will be settled, just as surely as all other diffi- 
culties of a like character which have originated in this 
Government have been adjusted. Let the people on both 
sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds 
have cleared away in due time, so will this great nation 



1861-1SG5 139 

continue to prosper as heretofore. But, fellow-citizens, 
I have spoken longer on this subject than I intended at 
the outset. 

It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Penn- 
sylvania. Assuming that direct taxation is not to be 
adopted, the tariff question must be as durable as the 
Government itself. It is a question of national house- 
keeping. It is to the Government what replenishing the 
meal-tub is to the family. Ever-varying circumstances 
will require frequent modifications as to the amount 
needed and the sources of supply. So far there is little 
difference of opinion among the people. It is as to 
whether, and how far, duties on imports shall be ad- 
justed to favor home production in the home market, 
that controversy begins. One party insists that such ad- 
justment oppresses one class for the advantage of an- 
other; while the other party argues that, with all its in- 
cidents, in the long run all classes are benefited. In the 
Chicago platform there is a plank upon this subject which 
should be a general law to the incoming administration. 
We should do neither more nor less than we gave the 
people reason to believe we would when they gave us 
their votes. ... I have by no means a thoroughly ma- 
tured judgment upon this subject, especially as to de- 
tails; some general ideas are about all. I have long 
thought it would be to our advantage to produce any 
necessary article at home which can be made of as good 
quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at least 
by the difference of the carrying from abroad. In such 
case the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss of labor. 
For instance, labor being the true standard of value, is it 



140 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

not plain that if equal labor get a bar of railroad iron 
out of a mine in England and another out of a mine in 
Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a track at home 
cheaper than they could exchange countries, at least by 
the carriage? If there be a present cause why one can 
be both made and carried cheaper in money price than 
the other can be made without carrying, that cause is an 
unnatural and injurious one, and ought gradually, if 
not rapidly, to be removed. The condition of the treas- 
ury at this time would seem to render an early revision 
of the tariff indispensable. The Morrill (tariff) bill, now 
pending before Congress, may or may not become a law. 
I am not posted as to its particular provisions, but if they 
are generally satisfactory, and the bill shall now pass, 
there will be an end for the present. If, however, it shall 
not pass, I suppose the whole subject will be one of the 
most pressing and important for the next Congress. By 
the Constitution, the executive may recommend measures 
which he may think proper, and he may veto those he 
thinks improper, and it is supposed that he may add to 
these certain indirect influences to affect the action of 
Congress. My political education strongly inclines me 
against a very free use of any of these means by the 
executive to control the legislation of the country. As a 
rule, I think it better that Congress should originate as 
well as perfect its measures without external bias. I 
therefore would rather recommend to every gentleman 
who knows he is to be a member of the next Congress to 
take an enlarged view, and post himself thoroughly, so 
as to contribute his part to such an adjustment of the 
tariff as shall produce a sufficient revenue, and in its 



1861-1865 141 

other bearings, so far as possible, be just and equal to 
all sections of the country and classes of the people. 



Buffalo {Fehruary 16) 

. . . Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the 
hope that I may be able to relieve the country from the 
present, or, I should say, the threatened difficulties. I 
am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the ability 
to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who 
has never forsaken this favored land, through the instru- 
mentality of this great and intelligent people. Without 
that assistance I shall surely fail; with it, I cannot fail. 
When we speak of threatened difficulties to the country, 
it is natural that it should be expected that something 
should be said by myself with regard to particular meas- 
ures. Upon more mature reflection, however, others will 
agree with me that, when it is considered that these dif- 
ficulties are without precedent, and have never been acted 
upon by any individual situated as I am, it is most proper 
I should wait and see the development, and get all the 
light possible, so that when I do speak authoritatively, I 
may be as near right as possible. When I shall speak 
authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent with 
the Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States, 
of each State, and of each section of the country, and not 
to disappoint the reasonable expectations of those who 
have confided to me their votes. In this connection allow 
me to say that you, as a portion of the great American 
people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up 



142 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations 
to the Constitution. 



Albany (^February 18) 

... I am notified by your governor that this reception 
is tendered by citizens without distinction of party. Be- 
cause of this I accept it the more gladly. In this coun- 
try, and in any country where freedom of thought is tol- 
erated, citizens attach themselves to political parties. It 
is but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this act 
to the supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to 
the various parties, each man in his own judgment sup- 
poses he thereby best advances the interests of the whole 
country. And when an election is past, it is altogether 
befitting a free people, as I suppose, that, until the next 
election, they should be one people. The reception you 
have extended me to-day is not given to me personally, — 
it should not be so, — ^but as the representative, for the 
time being, of the majority of the nation. If the election 
had fallen to any of the more distinguished citizens who 
received the support of the people, this same honor should 
have greeted him that greets me this day, in testimony 
of the universal, unanimous devotion of the whole people 
to the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual lib- 
erties of succeeding generations in this country. 

I have neither the voice nor the strength to address 
you at any greater length. I beg you will therefore ac- 
cept my most grateful thanks for this manifest devotion 
— ^not to me, but the institutions of this great and glori- 
ous country. . . . 



1861-1865 143 

Trenton {February 21) 

... I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey 
holds in our early history. In the Revolutionary strug- 
gle few of the States among the Old Thirteen had more 
of the battle-fields of the country within their limits than 
New Jersey. May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, 
I mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest 
days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small 
book, such a one as few of the younger members have 
ever seen — Weems's 'Xife of Washington." I remember 
all the accounts there given of the battle-fields and strug- 
gles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed them- 
selves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle 
here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, 
the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships en- 
dured at that time, all fixed themselves on my memory 
more than any single Revolutionary event; and you all 
know, for you have all been boys, how these early impres- 
sions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking 
then, boy even though I was, that there must have been 
something more than common that these men struggled 
for. I am exceedingly anxious that that thing — that 
something even more than national independence, that 
something that held out a great promise to all the people 
of the world to all time to come — I am exceedingly anx- 
ious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of 
the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the 
original idea for which that struggle was made; and I 
shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instru- 
ment in the hands of the Almighty, and of this his al- 



144 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

most chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that 
great struggle. You give me this reception, as I under- 
stand, without distinction of party. I learn that this body- 
is composed of a majority of gentlemen who, in the ex- 
ercise of their best judgment in the choice of a chief mag- 
istrate, did not think I was the man. I understand, 
nevertheless, that they come forward here to greet me 
as the constitutionally elected President of the United 
States — as citizens of the United States to meet the man 
who, for the time being, is the representative of the maj- 
esty of the nation — united by the single purpose to per- 
petuate the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties of 
the people. As such, I accept this reception more grate- 
fully than I could do did I believe it were tendered to 
me as an individual. 



Hall of Independence, Philadelphia (Fehruary 22) 

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself stand- 
ing here, in this place, where were collected together the 
wisdom, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the 
institutions under which we live. You have kindly sug- 
gested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring 
peace to the present distracted condition of the country. 
I can say in .return, sir, that all the political sentiments 
I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able 
to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and 
were given to the world from this hall. I have never had 
a feeling politically that did not spring from the senti- 
ments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I 
have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred 



1861-1865 145 

by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted 
that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over 
the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of 
the army who achieved that independence. I have often 
inquired of myself what great principle o.r idea it was 
that kept the confederacy so long together. It was not 
the mere matter of separation of colonies from the mother- 
land, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this 
country, but, I hope, to the world for all future time. 
It was that which gave promise that in due time the 
weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. 
This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of In- 
dependence. Now, my friends, can the country be saved 
upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one 
of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save 
it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be 
truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved with- 
out giving up that principle, I was about to say I would 
rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. 
Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there 
need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for 
it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say, in 
advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it is 
forced upon the Government, and then it will be com- 
pelled to act in self-defence. 

My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and 
I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I 
came here. I supposed it was merely to do something 
toward raising the flag. I may, therefore, have said some- 
thing indiscreet. I have said nothing but what I am 



146 ABRAHAM LIIsCOLN 

willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty 
God, die by. 



The First Inaugural (March 4, 1861) 

Fellow-citizens of the United States: — In compliance 
with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear 
before you to address you briefly, and to take in your 
presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the 
United States to be taken by the President before he en- 
ters on the execution of his office/' 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which there 
is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the 
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican 
administration their property and their peace and per- 
sonal security are to be endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the 
while existed and been open to their inspection. It is 
found in nearly all the published speeches of him who 
now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those 
speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly 
or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful 
right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those 
who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge 
that I had made this and many similar declarations, and 
had never recanted them. And, more than this, they 
placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to 



1861-1865 147 

themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution 
which I now read: 



"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of 
the States, and especially the right of each State to order 
and control its own domestic institutions according to its 
own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of 
power on which the perfection and endurance of our political 
fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter 
under what pretext, as amongst the gravest of crimes." 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the prop- 
erty, peace, and security of no section are to be in any 
wise endangered by the now incoming administration. 
I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with 
the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheer- 
fully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, 
for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to 
another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up of 
fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read 
is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of 
its provisions : 

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the 
party to whom such service or labor may be due." 



148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver 
is the law. All members of Congress swear their support 
to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as 
to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose 
cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be de- 
livered up/' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they 
would make the effort in good temper, could they not with 
nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means 
of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 

There is some differences of opinion whether this clause 
should be enforced by national or by State authority; but 
surely that difference is not a very material one. If the 
slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little conse- 
quence to him or to others by which authority it is done. 
And should anyone in any case be content that his oath 
shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy 
as to how it shall be kept? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane juris- 
prudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in 
any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be 
well at the same time to provide by law for the enforce- 
ment of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees 
that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States"? 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution 
or laws by any hypercritical rules. And, while I do not 



1861-1865 149 

choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as 
proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much 
safer for all, both in official and private stations, to con- 
form to and abide by all those acts which stand unre- 
pealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find im- 
punity in having them held to be unconstitutional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of 
a President under our national Constitution. During that 
period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens 
have, in succession, administered the executive branch of 
the Government. They have conducted it through many 
perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all 
this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task 
for the brief constitutional term of four years under 
great and peculiar difficulty, A disruption of the Fed- 
eral Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of 
the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. 
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental 
law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that 
no government proper ever had a provision in its organic 
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the 
express provisions of our national Constitution, and the 
Union will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy 
it except by some action not provided for in the instru- 
ment itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, 
but an association of States in the nature of contract 
merely, can it as a contract be peaceably unmade by less 
than aU the parties who made it? One party to a con- 



150 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

tract may violate it — ^break it, so to speak; but does it 
not require all to lawfully rescind it? 

Descending from these general principles, we find the 
proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is per- 
petual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The 
Union is much older than the Constitution. It was 
formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. 
It was matured and continued by the Declaration of In- 
dependence in 1776. It was further matured, and the 
faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted 
and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles 
of Confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of 
the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the 
Constitution was ^'to form a more perfect Union.'^ 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part 
only of the State be lawfully possible, the Union is less 
perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital 
element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its own 
mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that re- 
solves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and 
that acts of violence, within any State or States, against 
the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary 
or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution 
and the laws, tHe Union is unbroken; and to the extent 
of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself 
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be 
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem 
to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall per- 
form it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, 



1861-1865 151 

the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, 
or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I 
trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as 
the declared purpose of the Union that it will consti- 
tutionally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- 
lence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon 
the national authority. The power confided to me will 
be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and 
places belonging to the Government, and to collect the 
duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be necessary for 
these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force 
against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to 
the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so 
great and universal as to prevent competent resident 
citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no 
attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for 
that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the 
Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the 
attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly 
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for 
the time the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished 
in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people 
everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which 
is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The 
course here indicated will be followed unless current 
events and experience shall show a modification or change 
to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best 
discretion will be exercised according to circumstances 
actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peace- 



152 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

ful solution of the national troubles and the restoration 
of fraternal sympathies and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 
any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but 
if there be such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union may I not 
speak ? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- 
struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain 
precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a 
step while there is any possibility that any portion of the 
ills you fly from have no real existence ? Will you, while 
the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real 
ones you fly from — will you risk the commission of so 
fearful a mistake? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all constitu- 
tional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that 
any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been 
denied ? I think not. Happily the human mind is so con- 
stituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing 
this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which 
a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever 
been denied, tif by the mere force of numbers a ma- 
jority should deprive a minority of any clearly written 
constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, 
justify revolution — certainly would if such a right were 
a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights 
of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to 
them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and pro- 



1861-1865 153 

hibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never 
arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be 
framed with a provision specifically applicable to every 
question which may occur in practical administration. 
'No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reason- 
able length contain, express provisions for all possible 
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by 
national or by State authority? The Constitution does 
not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the 
Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. 
Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The 
Constitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into ma- 
jorities and minorities. If the minority will not acqui- 
esce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. 
There is no other alternative; for continuing the Govern- 
ment is acquiescence on one side or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than ac- 
quiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide 
and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede 
from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled 
by such minority. For instance, why may not any por- 
tion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbi- 
trarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present 
Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish 
disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact 
temper of doing this. 

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the 
States to compose a new Union as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession? 



154 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional 
checks and limitations, and always changing easily with 
deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, 
is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever re- 
jects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. 
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a 
permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, 
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism 
in some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme 
Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be bind- 
ing, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the ob- 
ject of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high 
respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other 
departments of the Government. And while it is obvi- 
ously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any 
given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited 
to that particular case, with the chance that it may be 
overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, 
can better be borne than could the evils of a different 
practice. ^ At the same time, the candid citizen must con- 
fess that if the policy of the Government, upon vital ques- 
tions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed 
by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are 
made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal 
actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rul- 
ers, having to that extent practically resigned their gov- 
ernment into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is 
there in this view any assault upon the court or the 



1861-1865 155 

judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to 
decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no 
fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to 
political purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, and 
ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, 
and ought not to be extended. This is the only substan- 
tial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitu- 
tion and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave 
trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can 
ever be in a community where the moral sense of the peo- 
ple imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body 
of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both 
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can- 
not be perfectly cured ; and it would be worse in both cases 
after the separation of the sections than before. The for- 
eign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be 
ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, 
while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, 
would not be surrendered at all by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor build 
an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife 
may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond 
the reach of each other; but the different parts of our 
country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face 
to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must 
continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after 
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier 
than friends can make laws ? Can treaties be more faith- 



156 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

fully enforced between aliens than laws can among 
friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight al- 
ways; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old ques- 
tions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the peo- 
ple who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of 
the existing government, they can exercise their consti- 
tutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right 
to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of 
the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are de- 
sirous of having the national Constitution amended. 
While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully 
recognize the rightful authority of the people over the 
whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes pre- 
scribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under ex- 
isting circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair op- 
portunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will 
venture to add that to me the convention mode seems 
preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with 
the people themselves, instead of only permitting them 
to take or reject propositions originated by others not 
especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not 
be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or 
refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Con- 
stitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen — 
has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Gov- 
ernment shall never interfere with the domestic insti- 
tutions of the States, including that of persons held to 
service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, 
I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular 



1861-1865 157 

amendments so far as to say that, holding such a pro- 
vision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no 
objection to its being made express and irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix 
terms for the separation of the States. The people them- 
selves can do this also if they choose; but the executive, 
as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to ad- 
minister the present government, as it came to his hands, 
and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 
equal* hope in the world? In our present differences is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If the 
Almighty Kuler of nations, with his eternal truth and 
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the 
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by 
the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. 

By the frame of the government under which we live, 
this same people have wisely given their public servants 
but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wis- 
dom, provided for the return of that little to their own 
hands at very short intervals. While the people retain 
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any ex- 
treme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure 
the government in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you 
in hot haste to a step which you would never take delib- 
erately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but 



158 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

1 
no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as 
are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unim- 
paired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own 
framing under it; while the new administration will have 
no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it 
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right 
side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason 
for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christian- 
ity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet for- 
saken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in 
the best way all our present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and 
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.' The 
government will not assail you. You can have no con- 
flict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have 
no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, 
while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, pro- 
tect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, 
by the better angels of our nature. 

Asking Advice of the Senate (March 16, 1861) 

To the Senate of the United States: The Senate has 
transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my 



1861-1865 159 

predecessor to that body on the 21st of February last, 
proposing to take its advice on the subject of a proposition 
made by the British Government through its minister here 
to refer the matter in controversy between that govern- 
ment and the Government of the United States to the 
arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the 
King of the Netherlands, or the Eepublic of the Swiss 
Confederation. 

In that message my predecessor stated that he wished 
to present to the Senate the precise questions following, 
namely: "Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to 
either of the sovereign powers above named the dispute 
now existing between the governments of the United 
States and Great Britain concerning the boundary line 
between Vancouver's Island and the American continent? 
In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide 
where the line is by the description in the treaty of June 
15, 1846, shall he be authorized to establish a line accord- 
ing to the treaty as nearly as possible? Which of the 
three powers named by Great Britain as an arbiter shall 
be chosen by the United States?" 

I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my 
predecessor in this important matter; but, on the con- 
trary, I not only shall receive the advice of the Senate 
thereon cheerfully, but I respectfully ask the Senate for 
their advice on the three questions before recited. 

To Secretary Seward {March 18, 1861) 

My Dear Sir: I believe it is a necessity with us to 
make the appointments I mentioned last night — that is, 



160 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Charles F. Adams to England, William L. Dayton to 
France, George P. Marsh to Sardinia, and Anson Bur- 
lingame to Austria. These gentlemen all have my high- 
est esteem, but no one of them is originally suggested 
by me except Mr. Dayton. Mr. Adams I take because 
you suggested him, coupled with his eminent fitness for 
the place. Mr. Marsh and Mr. Burlingame I take be- 
cause of the intense pressure of their respective States, 
and their fitness also. 

The objection to this card is that locally they are so 
huddled up — three being in New England and two from 
a single State. I have considered this, and will not shrink 
from the responsibility. This, being done, leaves but five 
full missions undisposed of — Rome, China, Brazil, Peru, 
and Chili. And then what about Carl Schurz ; or, in other 
words, what about our German friends ? 

Shall we put the card through, and arrange the rest 
afterward? What say you? 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



To StuaH (March 30) 

Dear Stuart: 

Cousin Lizzie shows me your letter of the 27th. The 
question of giving her the Springfield post-office troubles 
me. You see I have already appointed William Jayne a 
Territorial governor and Judge Trumbull's brother to a 
land-office. Will it do for me to go on and justify the 
declaration that Trumbull and I have divided out all 



1861-1865 161 

the offices among our relatives? Dr. Wallace, you know, 
is needy, and looks to me; and I personally owe him 
much. 

I see by the papers, a vote is to be taken as to the 
post-office. Could you not set up Lizzie and beat them 
all? She, being here, need know nothing of it, so there- 
fore there would be no indelicacy on her part. 

The President is President (April 1, 1861) 
Hon. W. H. Seward. 

My Dear Sir: Since parting with you I have been 
considering your paper dated this day, and entitled 
"Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." The 
first proposition in it is, ''First, We are at the end of a 
month's administration, and yet without a policy either 
domestic or foreign." 

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I 
said: "The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to 
the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts." 
This had your distinct approval at the time ; and, taken in 
connection with the order I immediately gave General 
Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power 
to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact do- 
mestic policy you now urge, with the single exception 
that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter. 

Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of 
Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a party issue, 
while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national 
and patriotic one. 



162 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo 
certainly brings a new item within the range of our for- 
eign policy; but up to that time we have been preparing 
circulars and instructions to ministers and the like, all 
in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we 
had no foreign policy. 

Upon your closing propositions — that "whatever policy 
we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. 

"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to 
pursue and direct it incessantly. 

"Either the President must do it himself, and be all 
the while active in it, or devolve it on some member of 
his Cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it must end, and 
all agree and abide" — I remark that if this must be done, 
I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, 
I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed with- 
out good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnec- 
essary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I 
wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of 
all the Cabinet. 

Your obedient servant. 

Loss of a Noble Soldier (May 25, 1861) 

To the Father and Mother 

of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth. 

My Dear Sir and Madame: In the untimely loss 
of your noble son, our affliction here is scarcely less 
than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one's 
country, and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, 
have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In 



1861-1865 163 

size, in years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, 
his power to command men was surpassingly great. This 
power, combined with a fine intellectual and indomitable 
energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him, 
as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that depart- 
ment I ever knew. And yet he was singularly modest and 
deferential in social intercourse. My acquaintance with 
him began less than two years ago; yet, through the lat- 
ter half of the intervening period, it was as intense as 
the disparity of our ages and my engrossing engagements 
would permit. To me he appeared to have no indul- 
gences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter a pro- 
fane or an intemperate word. What was conclusive of 
his good heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors 
i he labored for so laudably, and for which, in the sad end, 
he so gallantly gave his life, he meant for them no less 
than for himself. 

In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sa- 
credness of your sorrow, I have ventured to address you 
this tribute to the memory of my young friend and your 
brave and early fallen son. 

May God give you the consolation which is beyond all 
earthly power. Sincerely your friend in common af- 
fliction. 

The CaU to Anns (April 15, 1861) 

Whereas the laws of the United States have been for 
some time past and now are opposed, and the execution 
thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Geor- 
gia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, 
by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the or- 



164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers 
vested in the marshals by law: 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the 
Constitution and the laws, have thought it fit to call forth, 
and hereby do call forth the militia of the several States 
of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five 
thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to 
cause the laws to be duly executed. 

The details for this object will be immediately com- 
municated to the State authorities through the War De- 
partment. 

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and 
aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and 
the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity 
of popular government; and to redress wrongs already 
long enough endured. 

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned 
to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to re- 
possess the forts, places, and property which have been 
seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost 
care will be observed, consistently with the objects afore- 
said, to avoid any devastation, and destruction, of or in- 
terference with property, or any disturbance of peace- 
ful citizens in any part of the country. 

And I hereby command the persons composing the com- 
binations aforesaid to disperse and retire peacefully to 
their respective abodes within twenty days from date. 

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs 
presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in vir- 
tue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, con- 



1861-1865 165 

vene both Houses of Congress. Senators and Representa- 
tives are therefore summoned to assemble at their re- 
spective chambers at twelve o'clock, noon, on Thursday, 
the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider 
and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the 
public safety and interest may seem to demand. 

The War Message (July 4, 1861) 

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES : Having been con- 
vened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the 
Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordi- 
nary subject of legislation. 

At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four 
months ago, the functions of the Federal Government were 
found to be generally suspended within the several States 
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- 
ana, and Florida, excepting only those of the Post-office 
Department. 

Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, 
custom-houses, and the like, including the movable and 
stationary property in and about them, had been seized, 
and were held in open hostility to this government, ex- 
cepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on 
and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charles- 
ton Harbor, South Carolina. The forts thus seized had 
been put in improved condition, new ones had been 
built, and armed forces had been organized and were or- 
ganizing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose. 

The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal 



166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Government in and near these States were either be- 
sieged or menaced by warlike preparations, and espe- 
cially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-pro- 
tected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to 
the best of its own, and outnumbering the latter as per- 
haps ten to one. A disproportionate share of the Fed- 
eral muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into 
these States, and had been seized to be used against the 
government. Accumulations of the public revenue lying 
within them had been seized for the same object. The 
navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very 
small part of it within the immediate reach of the gov- 
ernment. Officers of the Federal army and navy had re- 
signed in great numbers; and of those resigning a large 
proportion had taken up arms against the government. 
Simultaneously, and in connection with all this, the pur- 
pose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In 
accordance with this purpose, an ordinance had been 
adopted in each of these States, declaring the States re- 
spectively to be separated from the national Union, A 
formula for instituting a combined government of these 
States had been promulgated; and this illegal organiza- 
tion, in the character of confederate States, was already 
invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign 
powers. 

Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be 
an imperative duty upon the incoming executive to pre- 
vent, if possible, the consummation of such attempt to 
destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end 
became indispensable. This choice was made and was 
declared in the inaugural address. The policy chosen 



1861-1865 167 

looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before 
a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold the 
public places and property not already wrested from the 
government, and to collect the revenue, relying for the 
rest on time, discussion, and the ballot-box. It prom- 
ised a continuance of the mails, at government expense, 
to the very people who were resisting the government; 
and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to 
any of the people, or any of their rights. Of all that 
which a President might constitutionally and justifiably 
do in such a case, everything was forborne without which 
it was believed possible to keep the government on foot. 

On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first 
full day in office), a letter of Major Anderson, command- 
ing at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th of February and 
received at the War Department on the 4th of March, 
was by that department placed in his hands. This let- 
ter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that 
reinforcements could not be thrown into that fort within 
the time for his relief, rendered necessary by the lim- 
ited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding pos- 
session of the same, with a force of less than twenty 
thousand good and well-disciplined men. This opinion 
was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and 
their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of 
Major Anderson's letter. The whole was immediately 
laid before Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once con- 
curred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflection, 
however, he took full time, consulting with other officers, 
both of the army and the navy, and at the end of four 
days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclu- 



168 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

sion as before. He also stated at the same time that 
no such sufficient force was then at the control of the 
government, or could be raised and brought to the ground 
within the time when the provisions in the fort would be 
exhausted. In a purely military point of view, this re- 
duced the duty of the administration in the case to the 
mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the 
fort. 

It was believed, however, that to so abandon that posi- 
tion, under the circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; 
that the necessity under which it was to be done would 
not be fully understood; that by many it would be con- 
strued as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it 
would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its 
adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recogni- 
tion abroad; that, in fact, it would be our national de- 
struction consummated. This could not be allowed. 
Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would 
be reached Fort Pickens might be reinforced. This last 
would be a clear indication of policy, and would better 
enable the country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sum- 
ter as a military necessity. An order was at once di- 
rected to be sent for the landing of the troops from the 
steamship BrooMyn into Fort Pickens. This order could 
not go by land, but must make the longer and slower 
route by sea. The first return news from the order was 
received just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. 
The news itself was that the officer commanding the Sa- 
tine, to which vessel the troops had been transferred 
from the BrooMyn^ acting upon some quasi armistice of 
the late administration (and of the existence of whicK 



1861-1865 169 

the present administration, up to the time the order was 
despatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors to 
fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To now 
reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached 
at Fort Sumter was impossible — rendered so by the near 
exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort. In 
precaution against such a conjuncture, the government 
had, a few days before, commenced preparing an expedi- 
tion as well adapted as might be to relieve Fort Sumter, 
which expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or 
not, according to circumstances. The strongest antici- 
pated case for using it was now presented, and it was 
resolved to send it forward. As had been intended in this 
contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor 
of South Carolina that he might expect an attempt would 
be made to provision the fort; and that, if the attempt 
should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw 
on men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or 
in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was ac- 
cordingly given; whereupon the fort was attacked and 
bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival 
of the provisioning expedition. 

It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of 
Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on 
the part of the assailants. They well knew that the 
garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit ag- 
gression upon them. They knew — they were expressly 
notified — that the giving of bread to the few brave and 
hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that 
occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so 
much, should provoke more. They knew that this gov- 



170 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

ernment desired to keep tlie garrison in the fort, not to 
assail them, but merely to maintain visible possession, 
and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immedi- 
ate dissolution — trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, 
discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and 
they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the re- 
verse object — to drive out the visible authority of the 
Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolu- 
tion. That this was their object the executive well un- 
derstood; and having said to them in the inaugural ad- 
dress, "You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep this dec- 
laration good, but also to keep the case so free from the 
power of ingenious sophistry that the world should not 
be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sum- 
ter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was 
reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the gov- 
ernment began the conflict of arms, without a gun in 
sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the 
few in the fort sent to that harbor years before for their 
own protection, and still ready to give that protection in 
whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, 
they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, 
"immediate dissolution or blood." 

And this issue embraces more than the fate of these 
United States. It presents to the whole family of man 
the question whether a constitutional republic or de- 
mocracy — a government of the people by the same peo- 
ple — can or cannot maintain territorial integrity against 
its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether 
discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control 



1861-1865 in 

administration according to organic law in any case, can 
always, upon the pretenses made in this case or on any 
other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, 
break up their government, and thus practically put an 
end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to 
ask: Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal 
weakness ? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong 
for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to main- 
tain its own existence? 

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out 
the war power of the government, and so to resist force 
employed for its destruction by force for its preservation. 

The call was made, and the response of the country 
was most gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and spirit 
the most sanguine expectation. Yet none of the States 
commonly called slave States, except Delaware, gave a 
regiment through regular State organization. A few 
regiments have been organized within some others of 
those States by individual enterprise, and received into 
the government service. Of course the seceded States, 
so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the 
time of the inauguration), gave no troops to the cause 
of the Union. The border States, so called, were not 
uniform in their action, some of them being almost for 
the Union, while in others — as Virginia, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, and Arkansas — the Union sentiment was 
nearly repressed and silenced. The course taken in Vir- 
ginia was the most remarkable — perhaps the most im- 
portant. A convention elected by the people of that 
State to consider this very question of disrupting the 
Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia 



172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

when Fort Sumter fell. To this body the people had 
chosen a large majority of professed Union men. Al- 
most immediately after the fall of Sumter, many members 
of that majority went over to the original disunion mi- 
nority, and with them adopted an ordinance for with- 
drawing the State from the Union. Whether this change 
was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon 
Sumter, or their great resentment at the government's re- 
sistance to that assault, is not definitely known. Al- 
though they submitted the ordinance for ratification to 
a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then some- 
what more than a month distant, the convention and the 
Legislature "(which was also in session at the same time 
and place), with leading men of the State not members 
of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State 
were already out of the Union. They pushed military 
preparations vigorously forward all over the State. They 
seized the United States armory at Harper's Ferry, and 
the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They received 
— ^perhaps invited — into their State large bodies of troops, 
with their warlike appointments, from the so-called se- 
ceded States. They formally entered into a treaty of 
temporary alliance and co-operation with the so-called 
"Confederate States," and sent members to their con- 
gress at Montgomery. And finally, they permitted the 
insurrectionary government to be transferred to their 
capital at Richmond. 

The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant 
insurrection to make its nest within her borders; and this 
government has no choice left but to deal with it where 
it finds it. And it has the less regret as the loyal citi- 



1861-1865 173 

zens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those 
loyal citizens this government is bound to recognize and 
protect, as being Virginia. 

In the border States, so called, — in fact the middle 
States, — there are those who favor a policy which they 
call ^'armed neutrality"; that is, an arming of those 
States to prevent the Union forces passing one way, or 
the disunion the other, over their soil. This would be 
disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be 
the building of an impassable wall along the line of sepa- 
ration — and yet not quite an impassable one, for under 
the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands of Union 
men and freely pass supplies from among them to the in- 
surrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. 
At a stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands 
of secession, except only what proceeds from the external 
blockade. It would do for the disunionists that which, 
of all things, they most desire — feed them well and give 
them disunion without a struggle of their own. It rec- 
ognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation 
to maintain the Union; and while very many who have 
favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, 
very injurious in effect. 

Recurring to the action of tlie government, it may be 
stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 militia ; and, 
rapidly following this, a proclamation was issued for 
closing the ports of the insurrectionary districts by pro- 
ceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was be- 
lieved to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrec- 
tionists announced their purpose to enter upon the prac- 
tice of privateering. 



174 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three 
years, unless sooner discharged, and also for large addi- 
tions to the regular army and navy. These measures, 
whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under 
what appeared to be a popular demand and a public 
necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would 
readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been 
done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress. 

Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a 
duty to authorize the commanding general in proper 
cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the priv- 
ilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to 
arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary proc- 
esses and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem 
dangerous to the public safety. This authority has pur- 
posely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, 
the legality and propriety of what has been done under it 
are questioned, and the attention of the country has been 
called to the proposition that one who has sworn to "take 
care that the laws be faithfully executed" should not him- 
self violate them. Of course some consideration was 
given to the questions of power and propriety before 
this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws 
which were required to be faithfully executed were be- 
ing resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third 
of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of 
execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the 
use of the means necessary to their execution some sin- 
gle law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citi- 
zen's liberty that, practically, it relieves more of the guilty 
than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be 



1861-1865 175 

violated? To state the question more directly, are all 
the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government 
itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in 
such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the 
government should be overthrown when it was believed 
that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve 
it? But it was not believed that this question was pre- 
sented. It was not believed that any law was violated. 
The provision of the Constitution that *'the privilege 
of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, un- 
less when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public 
safety may require it,'^ is equivalent to a provision — is 
a provision — that such privilege may be suspended when, 
in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does 
require it. It was decided that we have a case of re- 
bellion, and that the public safety does require the quali- 
fied suspension of the privilege of the writ which was 
authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, 
and not the executive, is vested with this power. But 
the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to 
exercise the power ; and as the provision was plainly made 
for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the 
framers of the instrument intended that in every case 
the danger should run its course until Congress could be 
called together, the very assembling of which might be 
prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion. 
No more extended argument is now offered, as an opin- 
ion at some length will probably be presented by the 
attorney-general. Whether there shall be any legisla- 
tion upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted en- 
tirely to the better Judgment of Congress. 



176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The forbearance of this government has been so ex- 
traordinary and so long continued as to lead some for- 
eign nations to shape their action as if they supposed 
the early destruction of our national Union was prob- 
able. While this, on discovery, gave the executive some 
concern, he is now happy to say that the sovereignty 
and rights of the United States are now everywhere prac- 
tically respected by foreign powers; and a general sym- 
pathy with the country is manifested throughout the 
world. 

The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, 
and the Navy will give the information in detail deemed 
necessary and convenient for your deliberation and ac- 
tion; while the executive and all the departments will 
stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate new 
facts considered important for you to know. 

It is now recommended that you give the legal means 
for making this contest a short and decisive one: that 
you place at the control of the government for the work 
at least four hundred thousand men and $400,000,000. 
That number of men is about one-tenth of those of proper 
ages within the regions where, apparently, all are will- 
ing to engage; and the sum is less than a twenty- third 
part oi the money value owned by the men who seem 
ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now 
is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Eevo- 
lution when we came out of that struggle ; and the money 
value in the country now bears even a greater propor- 
tion to what it was then than does the population. 
Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve 
our liberties as each had then to establish them. 



1861-1865 177 

A right result at this time will be worth more to the 
world than ten times the men and ten times the money. 
The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no 
doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and 
that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal 
sanction, and the hand of the executive to give it prac- 
tical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest perplexi- 
ties of the government is to avoid receiving troops faster 
than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will 
save their government if the government itself will do 
its part only indifferently well. 

It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference 
whether the present movement at the South be called 
^'secession" or "rebellion." The movers, however, well un- 
derstand the difference. At the beginning they knew they 
could never raise their treason to any respectable magni- 
tude by any name which implies violation of law. They 
knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as 
much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride 
in and reverence for the history and government of their 
common country as any other civilized and patriotic peo- 
ple. They knew they could make no advancement di- 
rectly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. 
Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauch- 
ing of the public mind. They invented an ingenious 
sophism which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly 
logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete 
destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any 
State of the Union may consistently with the national 
Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, with- 
draw from the Union without the consent of the Union 



178 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

or of any other State. The little disguise that the sup- 
posed right is to be exercised only for just cause, them- 
selves to be the sole judges of its justice, is too thin to 
merit any notice. 

With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drug- 
ging the public mind of their section for more than thirty 
years, and until at length they have brought many good 
men to a willingness to take up arms against the gov- 
ernment the day after some assemblage of men have en- 
acted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of 
the Union, who could have been brought to no such thing 
the day before. 

This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its 
currency from the assumption that there is some omnipo- 
tent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State — to each 
State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither 
more nor less power than that reserved to them in the 
Union by the Constitution — no one of them ever having 
been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed 
into the Union even before they cast off their British 
colonial dependence; and the new ones each came into 
the Union directly from a condition of dependence, ex- 
cepting Texas. And even Texas in its temporary inde- 
pendence was never designated a State. The new ones 
only took the designation of States on coming into the 
Union, while that name was first adopted for the old 
ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein 
the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and in- 
dependent States"; but even then the object plainly was 
not to declare their independence of one another or of 
the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual 



1861-1865 179 

pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and 
afterward, abundantly show. The express plighting of 
faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Ar- 
ticles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union 
shall be perpetual, is most conclusive. Having never been 
States either in substance or in name outside of the 
Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," 
asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union 
itself? Much is said about the ^'sovereignty" of the 
States; but the word even is not in the national Consti- 
tution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitu- 
tions. What is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the 
term? Would it be far wrong to define it as "a political 
community without a political superior" ? Tested by this, 
no one of our States except Texas ever was a sovereignty. 
And even Texas gave up the character on coming into 
the Union ; by which act she acknowledged the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and the laws and treaties 
of the United States made in pursuance of the Consti- 
tution, to be for her the supreme law of the land. The 
States have their status in the Union, and they have no 
other legal status. If they break from this, they can 
only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, 
and not themselves separately, procured their independence 
and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union 
gave each of them whatever of independence or liberty 
it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, 
in fact, it created them as States. Originally some de- 
pendent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union 
threw off their old dependence for them, and made them 
States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a 



180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

State constitution independent of the Union. Of course, 
it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their 
constitutions before they entered the Union — nevertheless, 
dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the 
Union. 

Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights 
reserved to them in and by the national Constitution; 
but among these surely are not included all conceiv- 
able powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at 
most, such only as were known in the world at the time 
as governmental powers; and certainly a power to de- 
stroy the government itseK had never been known as a 
governmental, as a merely administrative power. This 
relative matter of national power and State rights, as a 
principle, is no other than the principle of generality and 
locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be con- 
fided to the whole — to the General Government; while 
whatever concerns only the State should be left exclu- 
sively to the State. This is all there is of original prin- 
ciple about it. Whether the national Constitution in de- 
fining boundaries between the two has applied the prin- 
ciple with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned. We 
are all bound by that defining, without question. 

What is now combated is the position that secession 
is consistent with the Constitution — is lawful and peace- 
ful. It is not contended that there is any express law 
for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law which 
leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation pur- 
chased with money the countries out of which several 
of these States were formed. Is it just that they shall 
go off without leave and without refunding? The na- 



1861-1865 181 

tion paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, 
nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the abor- 
iginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off with- 
out consent or without making any return? The nation 
is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of these 
so-called seceding States in common with the rest. Is 
it just either that creditors shall go unpaid or the re- 
maining States pay the whole ? A part of the present na- 
tional debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. 
Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this 
herself ? 

Again, if one State may secede, so may another; and 
when all shall have seceded, none is left to pay the debts. 
Is this quite just to creditors ? Did we notify them of this 
sage view of ours when we borrowed their money ? If we 
now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders to 
go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others 
choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will 
promise to remain. 

The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of 
secession. They have assumed to make a national consti- 
tution of their own, in which of necessity they have 
either discarded or retained the right of secession as they 
insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they 
thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours. 
If they have retained it, by their own construction of 
ours, they show that to be consistent they must secede 
from one another whenever they shall find it the easiest 
way of settling their debts, or affecting any other selfish 
or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disinte- 



182 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

gration, and upoii which no government can possibly 
endure. 

If all the States save one should assert the power to 
drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole 
class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power 
and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State 
rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead 
of being called "driving the one out,^^ should be called 
"the seceding of the others from that one," it would be 
exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, 
they make the point that the one, because it is a minority, 
may rightfully do what the others, because they are a 
majority, may not rightfully do. These politicians are 
subtle and profound on the rights of minorities. They 
are not partial to that power which made the Constitution 
and speaks from the preamble calling itself "We, the 
People." 

It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a 
majority of the legally qualified voters of any State except 
perhaps South Carolina in favor of disunion. There is 
much reason to believe that the Union men are the major- 
ity in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called 
seceded States. The contrary has not been demonstrated 
in any one of them. It is ventured to affirm this even of 
Virginia and Tennessee; for the results of an election held 
in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one 
side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered 
as demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an elec- 
tion, all that large class who are at once for the Union 
and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the 
Union. 



1861-1865 183 

It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free 
institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and im- 
proved the condition of our whole people beyond any 
example in the world. Of this we now have a striking 
and an impressive illustration. So large an army as the 
government has now on foot was never before known 
without a soldier in it but who has taken his place there 
of his own free choice. But more than this, there are 
many single regiments whose members, one and another, 
possess full practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, 
professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant, 
is known in the world; and there is scarcely one from 
which there could not be selected a President, a Cabinet, 
a Congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent 
to administer the government itself. Nor do I say this 
is not true also in the army of our late friends, now ad- 
versaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better the 
reason why the government which has conferred such bene- 
fits on both them and us should not be broken up. 
Whoever in any section proposes to abandon such a gov- 
ernment would do well to consider in deference to what 
principle it is that he does it; what better he is likely 
to get in its stead; whether the substitute will give, or be 
intended to give, so much of good to the people. There 
are some foreshado wings on this subject. Our adver- 
saries have adopted some declarations of independence 
in which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson, 
they omit the words "all men are created equal." Why? 
They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in 
the preamble of which, unlike our good old one, signed 
by Washington, they omit "We, the People," and substi- 



184 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

tute, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent 
States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of 
view the rights of men and the authority of the people. 

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of ■ 
the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world 
that form and substance of government whose leading ' 
object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artifi(?>"0l 
weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of lafeii- 
able pursuit for all ; to afford all an unfettered start, > yq^d 
a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial crqd 
temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leacncjt 
object of the government for whose existence we contttiutj,, 

I am most happy to believe that the plain people im^ilif;^ 
stand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note tlT/o ' 
while in this the government's hour of trial large nj 
bers of those in the army and navy who have been f avtiaorJ: 
with the offices have resigned and proved false -to the hT/oJ 
which had pampered them, not one common soldienspcf 
common sailor is known to have deserted his flag. IIIw 

Great honor is due to those officers who remained tnoO, 
despite the example of their treacherous associates ; v oA 
the greatest honor, and most important fact of all, is od^ 
unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and cissiB 
mon sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they kqza 
successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those wll^e 
commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as abscfiilte 
law. This is the patriotic instinct of the plain pr ode. 
They understand, without an argument, that the do.I^jy- 
ing of the government which was made by Washinr eon 
means no good to them. 

Our popular government has often been called an experi- 



1861-1865 185 

ment. Two points in it our people have already settled — 
the successful establishing and the successful admin- 
istering of it. One still remains — its successful mainte- 
nance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow 
it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that 
those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress 
a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful 
sr I'cessors of bullets ; and that when ballots have fairly 
and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful 
ap^. >al back to bullets; that there can be no successful 
a; -eal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elec- 
■ ■ lis. Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men 
t^/^t what they cannot take by an election, neither can they 
T:'.;9 it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the 

rinners of a war. 

*.est there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid 
• a as to what is to be the course of the government 
■/.' rard the Southern States after the rebellion shall have 
L en suppressed, the executive deems it proper to say it 
^^ il. be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the 
L tstitution and the laws; and that he probably will have 
'. ^ different understanding of the powers and duties of 
Federal Government relatively to the rights of the 

ui:es and the people, under the Constitution, than that 
- : ressed in the inaugural address. 

- 'e desires to preserve the government, that it may be 
adi. inistered for all as it was administered by the men 
wl ^ made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the right 
to ^ . am this of their government, and the government 
ha- .0 right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived 
that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, 



186 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

or any subjugation, in any just sense of those terms. 

The Constitution provides, and all the States have ac- 
cepted the provision, that "the United States shall guar- 
antee to every State in this Union a republican form of 
government." But if a State may lawfully go out of the 
Union, having done so it may also discard the republican 
form of government, so that to prevent its going out is 
an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the 
guarantee mentioned; and when an end is lawful and 
obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful 
and obligatory. 

It was with the deepest regret that the executive found 
the duty of employing the war power in defence of the 
government forced upon him. He could but perform this 
duty or surrender the existence of the government. No 
compromise by public servants could, in this case, be a 
cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but 
that no popular government can long survive a marked 
precedent that those who carry an election can only save 
the government from immediate destruction by giving up 
the main point upon which the people gave the election. 
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely 
reverse their own deliberate decisions. 

As a private citizen the executive could not have con- 
sented that these institutions shall perish ; much less could 
he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these 
free people had confided to him. He felt that he had 
no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances 
of his own life, in what might follow. In full view of 
his great responsibility he has, so far, done what he has 
deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own 



1861-1865 187 

judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your 
views and your action may so accord with his as to 
assure all faithful citizens who have heen disturbed in 
their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them, 
under the Constitution and the laws. 

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and 
with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and 
go forward without fear and with manly hearts. 

"Wanting to Work" (October 17, 1861) 

Major Eamsey, 

My Dear Sir: The lady bearer of this says she has 
two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. 
Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be 
encouraged. 

The Nation and the War (December 3, 1861) 

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives: — In the midst of unprecedented political 
troubles we have cause of great gratitude to God for un- 
usual good health and most abundant harvests. 

You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar 
exigencies of the times our intercourse with foreign 
nations has been attended with profound solicitude, chiefly 
turning upon our own domestic affairs. 

A disloyal portion of the American people have during 
the whole year been engaged in an attempt to divide and 
destroy the Union. A nation which endures factious do- 
mestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad, and one 



188 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke foreign 
intervention. 

Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able 
to resist the counsels of seeming expediency and ungener- 
ous ambition, althougli measures adopted under such in- 
fluences seldom fail to be unfortunate and injurious to 
those adopting them. 

The disloyal citizens of the United States who have 
offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid 
and comfort which they have invoked abroad have received 
less patronage and encouragement than they probably ex- 
pected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have 
seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, dis- 
carding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would 
act solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration 
of commerce, including especially the acquisition of cot- 
ton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their 
way to their object more directly or clearly through the 
destruction than through the preservation of the Union. 
If we could dare to believe that foreign nations are 
actuated by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure 
a sound argument could be made to show them that they 
can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to 
crush this rebellion than by giving encouragement to it. 

The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for ex- 
citing foreign nations to hostility against us, as already 
intimated, is the embarrassment of commerce. Those 
nations, however, not improbably saw from the first that it 
was the Union which made as well our foreign as our 
domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to 
perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing 



1861-1865 189 

difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more dur- 
able peace and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable 
commerce than can the same nation broken into hostile 
fragments. 

It is not my purpose to review our discussions with 
foreign states, because, whatever might be their wishes 
or dispositions, the integrity of our country and the 
stability of our government mainly depend not upon 
them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and intelli- 
gence of the American people. The correspondence itself, 
with the usual reservations, is herewith submitted. 

I venture to hope it will appear that we have prac- 
ticed prudence and liberality toward foreign powers, avert- 
ing causes of irritation and with firmness maintaining our 
own rights and honor. 

Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every 
other state, foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic 
difficulties, I recommend that adequate and ample meas- 
ures be adopted for maintaining the public defenses on 
every side. While under this general recommendation 
provision for defending our seacoast line readily occurs 
to the mind, I also in the same connection ask the atten- 
tion of Congress to our great lakes and rivers. It is be- 
lieved that some fortifications and depots of arms and 
munitions, with harbor and navigation improvements, all 
at well-selected points upon these, would be of great 
importance to the national defense and preservation. I 
ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War, ex- 
pressed in his report, upon the same general subject. 

I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of east 
Tennessee and western North Carolina should be con- 



190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nected with Kentucky and other faithful parts of the 
Union by railroad. I therefore recommend, as a military 
measure, that Congress provide for the construction of 
such road as speedily as possible. Kentucky no doubt 
will co-operate, and through her Legislature make the 
most judicious selection of a line. The northern terminus 
must connect with some existing railroad, and whether the 
route shall be from Lexington or Nicholasville to the Cum- 
berland Gap, or from Lebanon to the Tennessee line, in 
the direction of Knoxville, or on some still different line, 
can easily be determined. Kentucky and the General Gov- 
ernment co-operating, the work can be completed in a very 
short time, and when done it will be not only of vast 
present usefulness, but also a valuable permanent improve- 
ment, worth its cost in all the future . . . 

The operations of the treasury during the period which 
has elapsed since your adjournment have been conducted 
with signal success. The patriotism of the people has 
placed at the disposal of the government the large means 
demanded by the public exigencies. Much of the national 
loan has been taken by citizens of the industrial classes, 
whose confidence in their country's faith and zeal for 
their country's deliverance from present peril have in- 
duced them to contribute to the support of the govern- 
ment the whole of their limited acquisitions. This fact 
imposes peculiar obligations to economy in disbursement 
and energy in action. 

One of the unavoidable consequences of the present in- 
surrection is the entire suppression in many places of all 
the ordinary means of administering civil justice by the 
officers and in the forms of existing law. This is the 



1861-1865 191 

case, in whole or in part, in all the insurgent States; and 
as our armies advance upon and take possession of parts 
of those States the practical evil becomes more appar- 
ent. There are no courts nor officers to whom the citizens 
of other States may apply for the enforcement of their 
lawful claims against citizens of the insurgent States, and 
there is a vast amount of debt constituting such claims. 
Some have estimated it as high as $200,000,000, due in 
large part from insurgents in open rebellion to loyal 
citizens who are even now making great sacrifices in the 
discharge of their patriotic duty to support the govern- 
ment. Under these circumstances I have been urgently 
solicited to establish, by military power, courts to ad- 
minister summary justice in such cases. I have thus far 
declined to do it, not because I had any doubt that the 
end proposed — the collection of the debts — was just and 
right in itself, but because I have been unwilling to go 
beyond the pressure of necessity in the unusual exercise 
of power. But the powers of Congress, I suppose, are 
equal to the anomalous occasion, and therefore I refer 
the whole matter to Congress, with the hope that a plan 
may be devised for the administration of justice in all 
such parts of the insurgent States and Territories as may 
be under the control of this government, whether by a 
voluntary return to allegiance and order or by the power 
of our arms; this, however, not to be a permanent in- 
stitution, but a temporary substitute, and to cease as soon 
as the ordinary courts can be re-established in peace. 

Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled 
"An Act to confiscate property used far insurrectionary 
purposes," approved August 6, 1861, the legal claims of 



192 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

certain persons to the labor and service of certain other 
persons have become forfeited, and numbers of the latter 
thus liberated are already dependent on the United States, 
and must be provided for in some way. Besides this, it 
is not impossible that some of the States will pass similar 
enactments for their own benefit respectively, and by 
operation of which persons of the same class will be 
thrown upon them for disposal. In such case I recom- 
mend that Congress provide for accepting such persons 
from such States, according to some mode of valuation, 
in lieu, pro tanto, of direct taxes, o.r upon some other 
plan to be agreed on with such States respectively; that 
such persons, on such acceptance by the General Govern- 
ment, be at once deemed free, and that in any event 
steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one 
first mentioned if the other shall not be brought into 
existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial 
to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the 
free colored people already in the United States could 
not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such 
colonization. 

To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the 
acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of 
money beyond that to be expended in the territorial acqui- 
sition. Having practiced the acquisition of territory for 
nearly sixty years, the question of constitutional power 
to do so is no longer an open one with us. The power 
was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, 
in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the 
plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only 
legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes 



1861-1865 193 

for white men, this measure effects that object, for emi- 
gration of colored men leaves additional room for white 
men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, 
placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on 
political and commercial grounds than on providing room 
for population. 

On this whole proposition, including the appropriation 
of money with the acquisition of territory, does not the 
expediency amount to absolute necessity — that without 
which the government itself cannot be perpetuated? 

The war continues. In considering the policy to be 
adopted for suppressing the insurrection I have been 
anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this 
purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorse- 
less revolutionary struggle. I have therefore in every 
case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union 
prominent as the primary object of the contest on our 
part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military 
importance to the more deliberate action of the Legis- 
lature. 

In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered 
to the blockade of the ports held by the insurgents, instead 
of putting in force by proclamation the law of Congress 
enacted at the late session for closing those ports. 

So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as 
the obligations of law, instead of transcending I have 
adhered to the act of Congress to confiscate property 
used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon 
the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be 
duly considered. The Union must be preserved, and hence 
all indispensable means must be employed. We should 



194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme 
measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the dis- 
loyal, are indispensable. 

The inan^ral address at the beginning of the Admin- 
istration and the message to Congress at the late special 
session were both mainly devoted to the domestic con- 
troversy out of which the insurrection and consequent 
war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to add or sub- 
tract to or from the principles or general purposes stated 
and expressed in those documents. 

The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably 
expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general 
review of what has occurred since may not be unprofit- 
able. What was painfully uncertain then is much better 
defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events 
is plainly in the right direction. The insurgents confi- 
dently claimed a strong support from the north of Mason 
and Dixon's line, and the friends of the Union were 
not free from apprehension on the point. This, how- 
ever, was soon settled definitely, and on the right side. 
South of the line noble little Delaware led off right from 
the first. Maryland was made to seem against the Union. 
Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and 
railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many 
days at one time without the ability to bring a single 
regiment over her soil to the capital. Now her bridges and 
railroads are repaired and open to the government; she 
already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union, 
and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular elec- 
tion, have sustained the Union by a larger majority and 
a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any 



1861-1865 195 

candidate or any question. Kentucky, too, for some time 
in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, unchangeably 
ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri is compara- 
tively quiet, and, I believe, cannot again be overrun by 
the insurrectionists. These three States of Maryland, 
Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which would promise 
a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not 
less than forty thousand in the field for the Union, 
while of their citizens certainly not more than a third 
of that number, and they of doubtful whereabouts and 
doubtful existence, are in arms against us. After a some- 
what bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the 
Union people of western Virginia, leaving them masters 
of their own country. . . . 

With the retirement of General Scott came the Execu- 
tive duty of appointing in his stead a general-in-chief of 
the army. It is a fortunate circumstance that neither in 
council nor country was there, so far as I know, any 
difference of opinion as to the proper person to be 
selected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his 
judgment in favor of General McClellan for the position, 
and in this the nation seemed to give a unanimous con- 
currence. The designation of General McClellan is there- 
fore in considerable degree the selection of the country 
as well as of the Executive, and hence there is better 
reason to hope there will be given him the confidence and 
cordial support thus by fair implication promised, and 
without which he cannot with so full efficiency serve 
the country. 

It has been said that one bad general is better than 
two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean 



196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

no more than that an army is better directed by a single 
mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at 
variance and cross-purposes with each other. 

And the same is true in all joint operations wherein 
those engaged can have none but a common end in view 
and can differ only as to the choice of means. In a storm 
at sea no one on board can wish the ship to sink, and yet 
not unfrequently all go down together because too many 
will direct and no single mind can be allowed to control. 

It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, 
if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popu- 
lar government — the rights of the people. Conclusive 
evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely 
considered public documents, as well as in the general 
tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the 
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the 
denial to the people of all right to participate in the 
selection of public officers except the legislative boldly 
advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large con- 
trol of the people in government is the source of all politi- 
cal evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a 
possible refuge from the power of the people. In my 
present position I could scarcely be justified were I to 
omit raising a warning voice against this approach of 
returning despotism. 

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argu- 
ment should be made in favor of popular institutions, but 
there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed 
as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is 
the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if 
not above, labor in the structure of the government. It 



1861-1865 197 

is assumed that labor is available only in connection with 
capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning 
capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. 
This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best 
that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to 
work by their own consent, or huy them and drive them 
to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it 
is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired 
laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is as- 
sumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in 
that condition for life. 

Now there is no such relation between capital and 
labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free 
man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. 
Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from 
them are groundless. 

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital 
is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed 
if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of 
capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. 
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection 
as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and 
probably always will be, a relation between labor and 
capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in as- 
suming that the whole labor of community exists within 
that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid 
labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy an- 
other few to labor for them. A large majority belong to 
neither class — neither work for others nor have others 
working for them. In most of the Southern States a 
majority of the whole people of all colors are neither 



198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority 
are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families — 
wives, sons, and daughters, — work for themselves on their 
farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole 
product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital 
on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the 
other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of 
persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they 
labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others 
to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a 
distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the 
existence of this mixed class. 

Again, as has already been said, there is not of neces- 
sity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed 
to that condition for life. Many independent men every- 
where in these States a few years back in their lives were 
hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the 
world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which 
to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own 
account another while, and at length hires another new 
beginner to help him. This is the just and generous 
and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives 
hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and im- 
provement of condition to all. No men living are more 
worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty ; 
none less inclined to take or touch aught which they 
have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrender- 
ing a political power which they already possess, and which 
if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of 
advancement against such as they and to fix new disabili- 



1861-1865 199 

ties and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be 
lost. . . . 

1862 
A Message to English Working Men (January 10, 1862) 

Working-Men of Manchester: 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the 
address and resolutions which you sent me on the eve of 
the new year. When I came, on the 4th of March, 1861, 
through a free and constitutional election to preside in 
the Government of the United States, the country was 
found at the verge of civil war. Whatever might have 
been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty, para- 
mount to all others, was before me, namely, to maintain 
and preserve at once the Constitution and the integrity 
of the Federal Republic. A conscientious purpose to 
perform this duty is the key to all the measures of ad- 
ministration which have been and to all which will here- 
after be pursued. Under our frame of government and 
my official oath, I could not depart from this purpose if I 
would. It is not always in the power of governments 
to enlarge or restrict the scope of moral results which 
follow the policies that they may deem it necessary for 
the public safety from time to time to adopt. 

I have understood well that the duty of self-preserva- 
tion rests solely with the American people; but I have at 
the same time been aware that favor or disfavor of foreign 
nations might have a material influence in enlarging or 



200 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

prolonging the struggle with disloyal men in which the 
country is engaged. A fair examination of history has 
served to authorize a belief that the past actions and 
influences of the United States were generally regarded 
as having been beneficial toward mankind. I have, there- 
fore, reckoned upon the forbearance of nations. Cir- 
cumstances — to some of which you kindly allude — induce 
me especially to expect that if justice and good faith 
should be practiced by the United States, they would en- 
counter no hostile influence on the part of Great Britain. 
It is now a pleasant duty to acknowledge the demonstra- 
tion you have given of your desire that a spirit of amity 
and peace toward this country may prevail in the councils 
of your Queen, who is respected and esteemed in your 
own country only more than she is by the kindred nation 
which has its home on this side of the Atlantic. 

I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the 
working-men at Manchester, and in all Europe, are called 
to endure in this crisis. It has been often and studiously 
represented that the attempt to overthrow this govern- 
ment, which was built upon the foundation of human 
rights, and to substitute for it one which should rest 
exclusively on the basis of human slavery, was likely to 
obtain the favor of Europe. Through the action of our 
disloyal citizens, the working-men of Europe have been 
subjected to severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their 
sanction to that attempt. Under the circumstances, I 
cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the 
question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism 
which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country. 



1861-1865 201 

It is indeed an energetic and reinspiring assurance of the 
inherent power of truth and of the ultimate and uni- 
versal triumph of justice, humanity, and freedom. I do 
not doubt that the sentiments you have expressed will be 
sustained by your great nation; and, on the other hand, 
I have no hesitation in assuring you that they will excite 
admiration, esteem, and the most reciprocal feelings of 
friendship among the American people. I hail this inter- 
change of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that whatever 
else may happen, whatever misfortune may befall your 
country or my own, the peace and friendship which now 
exist between the two nations will be, as it shall be my 
desire to make them, perpetual. 

Executive Order on Political Prisoners 
(February 14, 1862) 

The breaking out of a formidable insurrection based on 
a conflict of political ideas, being an event without prece- 
dent in the United States, was necessarily attended by 
great confusion and perplexity of the public mind. Dis- 
loyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold, and 
treason astonished the world by bringing at once into the 
field military forces superior in number to the standing 
army of the United States. 

Every department of the government was paralyzed by 
treason. Defection appeared in the Senate, in the House 
of Representatives, in the Cabinet, in the Federal courts; 
ministers and consuls returned from foreign countries to 
enter the insurrectionary councils or land or naval forces ; 
commanding and other officers of the army and in the 



202 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

navy betrayed our councils or deserted their posts for 
commands in the insurgent forces. Treason was flagrant 
in the revenue and in the post-office service, as well as in 
the Territorial governments and in the Indian reserves. 

Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial 
officers in the States, but even whole States rushed one 
after another with apparent unanimity into rebellion. 
The capital was besieged and its connection with all the 
States cut off. 

Even in the portions of the country which were most 
loyal, political combinations and secret societies were 
formed furthering the work of disunion, while, from 
motives of disloyalty or cupidity or from excited passions 
or perverted sympathies, individuals were found furnish- 
ing men, money, and materials of war and supplies to the 
insurgents' military and naval forces. Armies, ships, for- 
tifications, navyyards, arsenals, military posts, and garri- 
sons one after another were betrayed or abandoned to 
the insurgents. 

Congress had not anticipated, and so had not provided 
for, the emergency. The municipal authorities were 
powerless and inactive. The judicial machinery seemed 
as if it had been designed, not to sustain the government, 
but to embarrass and betray it. 

Foreign intervention, openly invited and industriously 
instigated by the abettors of the insurrection, became im- 
minent, and has only been prevented by the practice of 
strict and impartial justice, with the most perfect modera- 
tion, in our intercourse with nations. 

The public mind was alarmed and apprehensive, though 
fortunately not distracted or disheartened. It seemed to 



1861-1865 203 

be doubtful whether the Federal Government, which one 
year before had been thought a model worthy of universal 
acceptance, had indeed the ability to defend and main- 
tain itself. 

Some reverses, which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suf- 
fered by newly levied and inefficient forces, discouraged 
the loyal and gave new hopes to the insurgents. Volun- 
tary enlistments seemed about to cease and desertions 
commenced. Parties speculated upon the question 
whether conscription had not become necessary to fill 
up the armies of the United States. 

In this emergency the President felt it his duty to 
employ with energy the extraordinary powers which the 
Constitution confides to him in cases of insurrection. He 
called into the field such military and naval forces, unau- 
thorized by the existing laws, as seemed necessary. He 
directed measures to prevent the use of the post-office 
for treasonable correspondence. He subjected passengers 
to and from foreign countries to new passport regulations, 
and he instituted a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas 
corpus in various places, and caused persons who were 
represented to him as being or about to engage in dis- 
loyal and treasonable practices to be arrested by special 
civil as well as military agencies and detained in military 
custody when necessary to prevent them and deter others 
from such practices. Examinations of such cases were 
instituted, and some of the persons so arrested have been 
discharged from time to time under circumstances or upon 
conditions compatible, as was thought, with the public 
safety. 



204 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Meantime a favorable change of public opinion has oc- 
curred. The line between loyalty and disloyalty is plainly 
defined. The whole structure of the government is firm 
and stable. Apprehension of public danger and facilities 
for treasonable practices have diminished with the pas- 
sions which prompted heedless persons to adopt them. 
The insurrection is believed to have culminated and to be 
declining. 

The President, in view of these facts, and anxious to 
favor a return to the normal course of the administration 
as far as regard for the public welfare will allow, directs 
that all political prisoners or state prisoners now held 
in military custody be released on their subscribing to a 
parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to the 
enemies in hostility to the United States. 

The Secretary of War will, however, in his discretion, 
except from the effect of this order any persons detained 
as spies in the service of the insurgents, or others whose 
release at the present moment may be deemed incompatible 
with the public safety. 

To all persons who shall be so released, and who shall 
keep their parole, the President grants an amnesty for 
any past offences of treason or disloyalty which they may 
have committed. 

Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be made under the 
direction of the military authorities alone. 

By order of the President 

Edwin M. Stanton, 

Secretary of War. 



1861-1865 205 

Friendship with Other Nations (March 4, 1862) 

The United States have no enmities, animosities, or 
rivalries, and no interests which conflict with the welfare, 
safety, and rights or interests of any other nation. Their 
own prosperity, happiness, and aggrandizement are sought 
most safely and advantageously through the perservation 
not only of peace on their own part, but peace among all 
other nations. But while the United States are thus a 
friend to all other nations, they do not seek to conceal 
the fact that they cherish especial sentiments of friend- 
ship, for, and sympathies with, those who, like themselves, 
have founded their institutions on the principle of the 
equal rights of men ; and such nations being more promi- 
nently neighbors of the United States, the latter are co- 
operating with them in establishing civilization and cul- 
ture on the American continent. Such being the general 
principles which govern the United States in their foreign 
relations, you may be assured, sir, that in all things this 
government will deal justly, frankly, and, if it be possible, 
even liberally with Peru, whose liberal sentiments toward 
us you have so kindly expressed. 

Advice to the Border States (March 10, 1862) 

Memorandum of an Interview between the President 
and Some Border Slave-State Representatives, hy Hon. 
J. W. Crisfield. 

"Dear Sir: — I called, at the request of the President, 
to ask you to come to the White House to-morrow morn- 



206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing, at nine o'clock, and bring such of your colleagues 
as are in town." 

Yesterday, on my return from church, I found Mr. Post- 
master-General Blair in my room, writing the above note, 
which he immediately suspended, and verbally communi- 
cated the President's invitation and stated that the Presi- 
dent's purpose was to have some conversation with the 
delegations of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and 
Delaware, in explanation of his message of the 6th instant. 

This morning these delegations, or such of them as were 
in town, assembled at the White House at the appointed 
time, and after some little delay were admitted to an 
audience. Mr. Leary and myself were the only members 
from Maryland present, and, I think, were the only mem- 
bers of the delegation at that time in the city. I know 
that Mr. Pearce, of the Senate, and Messrs. Webster and 
Calvert, of the House, were absent. 

After the usual salutations, and we were seated, the 
President said, in substance, that he had invited us to 
meet him to have some conversation with us in explana- 
tion of his message of the 6th; that since he had sent 
it in several of the gentlemen then present had visited 
him, but had avoided any allusion to the message, and 
he therefore inferred that the import of the message had 
been misunderstood, and was regarded as inimical to the 
interests we represented; and he had resolved he would 
talk with us, and disabuse our minds of that erroneous 
opinion. 

The President then disclaimed any intent to injure the 
interests or wound the sensibilities of the slave States. 
On the contrary, his purpose was to protect the one and 



1861-1865 207 

respect the other; that we were engaged in a terrible, 
wasting, and tedious war; immense armies were in the 
field, and must continue in the field as long as the war 
lasts ; that these armies must, of necessity, be brought into 
contact with slaves in the States we represented and in 
other States as they advanced; that slaves would come to 
the camps, and continual irritation was kept up ; that he 
was constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic 
complaints: on the one side a certain class complained 
if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were 
frequently found who, participating in these views, acted 
in a way unfriendly to the slaveholder; on the other 
hand, slaveholders complained that their rights were inter- 
fered with, their slaves induced to abscond and protected 
within the lines; these complaints were numerous, loud 
and deep; were a serious annoyance to him and embar- 
rassing to the progress of the war; that it kept alive a 
spirit hostile to the government in the States we repre- 
sented ; strengthened the hopes of the Confederates that at 
some day the border States would unite with them, and 
thus tend to prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if 
this resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted 
by our States, these causes of irritation and these hopes 
would be removed, and more would be accomplished toward 
shortening the war than could be hoped from the greatest 
victory achieved by Union armies; that he made this 
proposition in good faith, and desired it to be accepted, if 
at all, voluntarily, and in the same patriotic spirit in 
which it was made; that emancipation was a subject ex- 
clusively under the control of the States, and must be 
adopted or rejected by each for itself; that he did not 



208 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

claim nor had this government any right to coerce them 
for that purpose; that such was no part of his purpose 
in making this proposition, and he wished it to be clearly 
understood ; that he did not expect us there to be prepared 
to give him an answer, but he hoped we would take the 
subject into serious consideration, confer with one another, 
and then take such course as we felt our duty and the 
interests of our constituents required of us. 

Mr. Noell, of Missouri, said that in his State slavery 
was not considered a permanent institution; that natural 
causes were there in operation which would at no distant 
day extinguish it, and he did not think that this propo- 
sition was necessary for that; and, besides that, he and 
his friends felt solicitous as to the message on account 
of the different constructions which the resolution and 
message had received. The New York Tribune was for 
it, and understood it to mean that we must accept gradual 
emancipation according to the plan suggested, or get 
something worse. 

The President replied that he must not be expected to 
quarrel with the New York Tribune before the right" time; 
he hoped never to have to do it; he would not anticipate 
events. In respect to emancipation in Missouri, he said 
that what had been observed by Mr. Noell was probably 
true, but the operation of these natural causes had not 
prevented the irritating conduct to which he had re- 
ferred, or destroyed the hopes of the Confederates that 
Missouri would at some time range herself alongside of 
them, which, in his judgment, the passage of this resolu- 
tion by Congress and its acceptance by Missouri would 
accomplish. 



1861-1865 209 

Mr. Crisfield, of Maryland, asked what would be the 
effect of the refusal of the State to accept this proposal, 
and he desired to know if the President looked to any 
policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this scheme. 

The President replied that he had no designs beyond 
the actions of the States on this particular subject. He 
should lament their refusal to accept it, but he had no 
designs beyond their refusal of it. 

Mr. Menzies, of Kentucky, inquired if the President 
thought there was any power except in the States them- 
selves to carry out his scheme of emancipation. 

The President replied that he thought there could not 
be. He then went off into a course of remarks not quali- 
fying the foregoing declaration nor material to be repeated 
to a just understanding of his meaning. 

Mr. Crisfield said he did not think the people of Mary- 
land looked upon slavery as a permanent institution; and 
he did not know that they would be very reluctant to 
give it up if provision was made to meet the loss and 
they could be rid of the race; but they did not like to 
be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action 
of the government or by indirection, as through the eman- 
cipation of slaves in this District, or the confiscation of 
Southern property as now threatened; and he thought 
before they would consent to consider this proposition they 
would require to be informed on these points. 

The President replied that, unless he was expelled by 
the act of God or the Confederate armies, he should 
occupy that house for three years; and as long as he 
remained there Maryland had nothing to fear either for 
her institutions or her interests on the points referred to. 



210 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. Crisfield immediately added: "Mr. President, if 
what you now say could be heard by the people of Mary- 
land, they would consider your proposition with a much 
better feeling than I fear without it they will be inclined 
to do." 

The PREsroENT : "That (meaning a publication of what 
he said) will not do; it would force me into a quarrel 
before the proper time"; and, again intimating, as he 
had before done, that a quarrel with the "Greeley faction" 
was impending, he said he did not wish to encounter it 
before the proper time, nor at all if it could be avoided. 

Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, then asked him re- 
specting the constitutionality of his scheme. 

The President replied: "As you may suppose, I have 
considered that; and the proposition now submitted does 
not encounter any constitutional difficulty. It proposes 
simply to co-operate with any State by giving such State 
pecuniary aid"; and he thought that the resolution, as 
proposed by him, would be considered rather as the ex- 
pression of a sentiment than as involving any constitu- 
tional question. 

Mr. Hall, of Missouri, thought that if this proposition 
was adopted at all it should be by the votes of the free 
States, and come as a proposition from them to the slave 
States, affording them an inducement to put aside this 
subject of discord; that it ought not to be expected that 
members representing slave-holding constituencies should 
declare at once, and in advance of any proposition to them, 
for the emancipation of slavery. 

The President said he saw and felt the force of the 
objection; it was a fearful responsibility, and every gen- 



1861-1865 211 

tleman must do as lie thouglit best ; that he did not know 
how this scheme was received by the members from the 
free States; some of them had spoken to him and received 
it kindly; but for the most part they were as reserved 
and chary as we had been, and he could not tell how they 
would vote. And in reply to some expression of Mr. Hall 
as to his own opinion regarding slavery, he said he did 
not pretend to disguise his antislavery feeling; that he 
thought it was wrong, and should continue to think so 
but that was not the question we had to deal with now. 
Slavery existed, and that, too, as well by the act of the 
Inj orth as of the South ; and in any scheme to get rid of it 
the North as well as the South was morally bound to do' 
its full and equal share. He thought the institution 
wrong and ought never to have existed ; but yet he recog- 
nized the rights of property which had grown out of it, 
and would respect those rights as fully as similar rights 
in any other property; that property can exist and does 
legally exist. He thought such a law wrong, but the 
rights of property resulting must be respected; he would 
get rid of the odious law, not by violating the right, but 
by encouraging the proposition and offering inducements 
to give it up. 

Here the interview, so far as this subject is concerned, 
terminated by Mr. Crittenden's assuring the President 
that, whatever might be our final action, we all thought 
him solely moved by a high patriotism and sincere de- 
votion to the happiness and glory of his country; and 
with that conviction we should consider respectfully the 
important suggestions he had made. 

After some conversation on the current war news, we 



212 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

retired, and I immediately proceeded to my room and 
wrote out this paper. 

J. W. Crisfield. 



Proclamation of Thanksgiving for Victories (April 10, 

1862) 

By the President of the United States of America: 
A Proclamation 

It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victo- 
ries to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing 
an internal rebellion, and at the same time to avert from 
our country the dangers of foreign intervention and in- 
vasion. 

It is therefore recommended to the people of the United 
States that at their next weekly assemblages in their 
accustomed places of public worship which shall occur 
after notice of this proclamation shall have been received, 
they especially acknowledge and render thanks to our 
Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings, that they 
then and there implore spiritual consolation in behalf of 
all who have been brought into affliction by the casualties 
and calamities of sedition and civil war, and that they 
reverently invoke the divine guidance for our national 
counsels, to the end that they may speedily result in the 
restoration of peace, harmony, and unity throughout our 
borders and hasten the establishment of fraternal relations 
among all the countries of the earth. 



1861-1865 213 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day 
[seal] of April, A. D. 1862, and of the independence of 
the United States the eighty-sixth. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President: 

William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 

Thanks to the Soldiers (May 15-Dec. 23, 1862) 

Soldiers, of the Twelfth Indiana Kegiment: It has 
not been customary heretofore, nor will it be hereafter, 
for me to say something to every regiment passing in 
review. It occurs too frequently for me to have speeches 
ready on all occasions. As you have paid such a mark 
of respect to the chief magistrate, it appears that I should 
say a word or two in reply. Your colonel has thought 
fit, on his own account and in your name, to say that you 
are satisfied with the manner in which I have performed 
my part in the difficulties which have surrounded the 
nation. For your kind expressions I am extremely grate- 
ful, but on the other hand I assure you that the nation is 
more indebted to you, and such as you, than to me. It 
is upon the brave hearts and strong arms of the people 
of the country that our reliance has been placed in support 
of free government and free institutions. 

For the part which you and the brave army of which 
you are a part have, under Providence, performed in this 
great struggle, I tender more thanks — greatest thanks 
that can be possibly due — and especially to this regi- 



214 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

ment, which has been the subject of good report. The 
thanks of the nation will follow you, and may God's bless- 
ing rest upon you now and forever. I hope that upon 
your return to your homes you will find your friends and 
loved ones well and happy. I bid you farewell. 

The American Soldier {Aug. U, 1862) 

To Count A. De Gasparin. 

Dear Sir: — Your very acceptable letter, dated Orbe, 
Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, 18th of July, 1862, is re- 
ceived. The moral effect was the worst of the affair 
before Kichmond, and that has run its course downward. 
We are now at a stand, and shall soon be rising again, as 
we hope. I believe it is true that, in men and material, 
the enemy suffered more than we in that series of con- 
flicts, while it is certain that he is less able to bear it. 

With us every soldier is a man of character, and must 
be treated with more consideration than is customary in 
Europe. Hence our great army, for slighter causes than 
could have prevailed there, has dwindled rapidly, bringing 
the necessity for a new call earlier than was anticipated. 
We shall easily obtain the new levy, however. Be not 
alarmed if you shall learn that we shall have resorted 
to a draft for part of this. It seems strange even to me, 
but it is true, that the government is now pressed to 
this course by a popular demand. Thousands who wish 
not to personally enter the service are nevertheless anxious 
to pay and send substitutes, provided they can have assur- 
ance that unwilling persons, similarly situated, will be 
compelled to do likewise. Besides this, volunteers mostly 



1861-1865 215 

choose to enter newly forming regiments, while drafted 
men can be sent to fill up the old ones, wherein man for 
man they are quite doubly as valuable. 

You ask, "Why is it that the North with her great 
armies so often is found with inferiority of numbers face 
to face with the armies of the South ?" While I painfully 
know the fact, a military man, which I am not, would 
better answer the question. The fact I know has not been 
overlooked, and I suppose the cause of its continuance 
lies mainly in the other facts that the enemy holds the 
interior and we the exterior lines, and that we operate 
where the people convey information to the enemy, while 
he operates where they convey none to us. 

I have received the volume and letter which you did 
me the honor of addressing to me, and for which please 
accept my sincere thanks. You are much admired in 
America for the ability of your writings, and much loved 
for your generosity to us and your devotion to liberal 
principles generally. 

You are quite right as to the importance to us, for 
its bearing upon Europe, that we should achieve military 
successes, and the same is true for us at home as well 
as abroad. Yet it seems unreasonable that a series of 
successes, extending through half a year, and clearing 
more than 100,000 square miles of country, should help 
us so little, while a single half -defeat should hurt us so 
much. But let us be patient. 

I am very happy to know that my course has not con- 
flicted with your judgment of propriety and policy. I 
can only say that I have acted upon my best convictions. 



216 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

without selfishness or malice, and that by the help of 
God I shall continue to do so. 

Please be assured of my highest respect and esteem. 

To the Army of the Potomac (Octoher 4 1862) 

I am surrounded by soldiers and a little farther off by 
the citizens of this good city of Frederick. Nevertheless 
I can only say, as I did five minutes ago, it is not proper 
for me to make speeches in my present position. I return 
thanks to our soldiers for the good services they have 
rendered, the energy they have shown, the hardships they 
have endured, and the blood they have shed for this Union 
of ours ; and I also return thanks, not only to the soldiers, 
but to the good citizens of Frederick, and to the good 
men, women, and children in this land of ours, for their 
devotion to this glorious cause; and I say this with no 
malice in my heart towards those who have done other- 
wise. May our children and children's children, for a 
thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits con- 
ferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet 
to rejoice under these glorious institutions, bequeathed to 
us by Washington and his compeers. Now, my friends, 
soldiers and citizens, I can only say once more — farewell. 

To Miss Fanny McCullough 

Executive Mansion, "Washington, 
December 23, 1862 
Dear Fanny: — It is with deep regret that I learn of 
the death of your kind and brave father, and especially 



1861-1865 217 

that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is 
common in such cases. In this sad world of ours sorrow 
comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered 
agony because it takes them unawares. The older have 
learned ever to expect it. I am anxious to afford some 
alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not 
possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that 
you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is 
a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know 
this, which is certainly true, will make you some less 
miserable now. I have had experience enough to know 
what I say, and you need only to believe it to feel better 
at once. The memory of your dear father, instead of an 
agony, will yet be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart, of 
a purer and holier sort than you have known before. 
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother. 

Your sincere friend, 
A. Lincoln. 

The Broader Powers of the Constitution (May 26, 1862) 
To THE Senate and House of Kepresentatives : 

The insurrection which is yet existing in the United 
States and aims at the overthrow of the Federal Constitu- 
tion and the Union, was clandestinely prepared during the 
winter of 1860 and 1861, and assumed an open organiza- 
tion in the form of a treasonable provisional government 
at Montgomery, in Alabama, on the 18th day of February, 
1861. On the 12th day of April, 1861, the insurgents 
committed the flagrant act of civil war by the bombard- 
ment and the capture of Fort Sumter, which cut off the 



218 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

hope of immediate conciliation. Immediately afterward 
all the roads and avenues to this city were obstructed, 
and the capital was put into the condition of a siege. 
The mails in every direction were stopped and the lines 
of telegraph cut off by the insurgents, and military and 
naval forces which had been called out by the govern- 
ment for the defense of Washington were prevented from 
reaching the city by organized and combined treasonable 
resistance in the State of Maryland. There was no 
adequate and effective organization for the public de- 
fense. Congress had indefinitely adjourned. There was 
no time to convene them. It became necessary for me 
to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, 
and processes which Congress had provided, I should let 
the government fall at once into ruin or whether, avail- 
ing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Con- 
stitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort 
to save it, with all its blessings, 'for the present age and 
for posterity. 

I thereupon summoned my constitutional advisers, the 
heads of all the departments, to meet on Sunday, the 20th 
day of April, 1861, at the office of the Navy Department, 
and then and there, with their unanimous concurrence, 
I directed that an armed revenue cutter should proceed to 
sea to afford protection to the commercial marine, and 
especially the California treasure ships then on their way 
to this coast. I also directed the commandant of the navy- 
yard at Boston to purchase or charter and arm as quickly 
as possible five steamships for purposes of public defense. 
I directed the commandant of the navy-yard at Philadel- 
phia to purchase or charter and arm an equal number for 




LINCOLN, THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 
(From Leslie's Weekly, Oct. 20, i860) 



1861-1865 219 

the same purpose. I directed the commandant at New 
York to purchase or charter and arm an equal number. 
I directed Commander Gillis to purchase or charter and 
arm and put to sea two other vessels. Similar directions 
were given to Commodore Dupont, with a view to the 
opening of passages by water to and from the capital. I 
directed the several officers to take the advice and obtain 
the aid and efficient services, in the matter, of his Excel- 
lency Edwin D. Morgan, the Governor of New York, or 
in his absence George D. Morgan, William M. Evarts, 
E. M. Blatchford, and Moses H. Grinnell, who were by 
my directions especially empowered by the Secretary of 
the Navy to act for his department in that crisis in mat- 
ters pertaining to the forwarding of troops and supplies 
for the public defense. 

The several departments of the government at that 
time contained so large a number of disloyal persons that 
it would have been impossible to provide safely through 
official agents only for the performance of the duties thus 
confided to citizens favorably known for their ability, 
loyalty, and patriotism. 

The several orders issued upon these occurrences were 
transmitted by private messengers, who pursued a cir- 
cuitous way to the seaboard cities, inland across the States 
of Pennsylvania and Ohio and the northern lakes. I be- 
lieve by these and other similar measures taken in that 
crisis, some of which were without any authority of law, 
the government was saved from overthrow. I am not 
aware that a dollar of the public funds thus confided with- 
out authority of law to unofficial persons was either lost 
or wasted, although apprehensions of such misdirection 



220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

occurred to me as objections to those extraordinary pre 
ceedings, and were necessarily overruled. I 

I recall these transactions now because my attention ha 
been directed to a resolution which was passed by thi 
House of Representatives on the 30th day of last month 
which is in these words: 

"Resolved, That Simon Cameron, late Secretary of Wai 
by investing Alexander Cummings with the control o:l 
large sums of the public money and authority to purchase 
military supplies without restriction, without requiring 
from him any guaranty for the faithful performance of his 
duties, when the services of competent public officers were 
available, and by involving the government in a vast 
number of contracts with persons not legitimately en- 
gaged in the business pertaining to the subject-matter of 
such contracts, especially in the purchase of arms for 
future delivery, has adopted a policy highly injurious to 
the public service, and deserves the censure of the House." 

Congress will see that I should be wanting equally in 
candor and in justice if I should leave the censure ex- 
pressed in this resolution to rest exclusively or chiefly 
upon Mr. Cameron. The same sentiment is unanimously 
entertained by the heads of departments who participated 
in the proceedings which the House of Representatives 
have censured. It is due to Mr. Cameron to say that 
although he fully approved the proceedings they were not 
moved nor suggested by himself, and that not only the 
President, but all the other heads of departments, were 
at least equally responsible with him for whatever error, 
wrong, or fault was committed in the premises. 



1861-1865 221 

The Anny and Fugitive Slaves (July 28, 1862) 

Sir: — The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by 
Mr. Thomas J. Durant has been shown to me. The writer 
appears to be an able, a dispassionate, and an entirely 
sincere man. The first part of the letter is devoted to an 
effort to show that the secession ordinance of Louisiana 
was adopted against the will of a majority of the people. 
This is probably true, and in that fact may be found some 
instruction. Why did they allow the ordinance to go 
into effect? Why did they not assert themselves? Why 
stand passive and allow themselves to be trodden down by 
a minority? Why did they not hold popular meetings 
and have a convention of their own to express and enforce 
the true sentiment of the State? If preorganization was 
against them then, why not do this now that the United 
States army is present to protect them? The paralysis — 
the dead palsy — of the government in this whole struggle 
is that this class of men will do nothing for the govern- 
ment, nothing for themselves, except demanding that the 
government shall not strike its open enemies, lest they 
be struck by accident! 

Mr. Durant complains that in various ways the relation 
of master and slave is disturbed by the presence of our 
army, and he considers it particularly vexatious that this, 
in part, is done under cover of an act of Congress, while 
constitutional guaranties are suspended on the plea of 
military necessity. The truth is, that what is done and 
omitted about slaves is done and omitted on the same 
military necessity. It is a military necessity to have 
men and money; and we can get neither in sufficient 



222 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

numbers or amounts if we keep from or drive from our 
lines slaves coming to them. Mx. Durant cannot be 
ignorant of the pressure in this direction, nor of my 
efforts to hold it within bounds till he and such as he 
shall have time to help themselves. 

I am not posted to speak understandingly on all the 
police regulations of which Mr. Durant complains. If 
experience shows any one of them to be wrong, let them be 
set right. I think I can perceive in the freedom of 
trade which Mr. Durant urges that he would relieve both 
friends and enemies from the pressure of the blockade. 
By this he would serve the enemy more effectively than 
the enemy is able to serve himself. I do not say or believe 
that to serve the enemy is the purpose of Mr. Durant, or 
that he is conscious of any purpose other than national 
and patriotic ones. Still, if there were a class of men 
who, having no choice of sides in the contest, were anxious 
only to have quiet and comfort for themselves while it 
rages, and to fall in with the victorious side at the end 
of it without loss to themselves, their advice as to the 
mode of conducting the contest would be precisely such 
as his is. He speaks of no duty — apparently thinks of 
none — resting upon Union men. He even thinks it in- 
jurious to the Union cause that they should be restrained 
in trade and passage without taking sides. They are to 
touch neither a sail nor a pump, but to be merely pas- 
sengers — deadheads at that — to be carried snug and dry 
throughout the storm, and safely landed right side up. 
Nay, more: even a mutineer is to go untouched lest these 
sacred passengers receive an accidental wound. Of course 



1861-1865 223 

the rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if tlie 
professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor 
permit the government to do it without their help. Now, 
I think the true remedy is very different from what is 
suggested by Mr. Durant. It does not lie in rounding the 
rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity 
for the war. The people of Louisiana who wish protection 
to person and property have but to reach forth their 
hands and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate 
the national authority, and set up a State government 
conforming thereto under the Constitution. They know 
how to do it, and can have the protection of the army 
while doing it. The army will be withdrawn so soon as 
such State government can dispense with its presence; 
and the people of the State can then, upon the old consti- 
tutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking. 
This is very simple and easy. 

If they will not do this — if they prefer to hazard all for 
the sake of destroying the government — it is for them 
to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the 
government to save them from losing all. If they decline 
what I suggest, you scarcely need to ask what I will do. 
What would you do in my position? Would you drop 
the war where it is ? Or would you prosecute it in future 
with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water? Would 
you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would 
you give up the contest, leaving any available means un- 
applied ? I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more 
than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save the govern- 
ment, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal 



224 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal 
with is too vast for malicious dealing. 



Duty of Aliens (July 21, 1862) 

The following order has been received from the Presi- 
dent of the United States: 

Eepresentations have been made to the President by 
the ministers of various foreign powers in amity with 
the United States that subjects of such powers have during 
the present insurrection been obliged or required by mili- 
tary authorities to take an oath of general or qualified 
allegiance to this government. It is the duty of all aliens 
residing in the United States to submit to and obey the 
laws and respect the authority of the government. For 
any proceeding or conduct inconsistent with this obliga- 
tion and subversive of that authority they may rightfully 
be subjected to military restraints when this may be 
necessary. But they cannot be required to take an oath of 
allegiance to this government, because it conflicts with 
the duty they owe to their own sovereigns. All such 
obligations heretofore taken are therefore remitted and 
annulled. Military commanders will abstain from im- 
posing similar obligations in future, and will in lieu 
thereof adopt such other restraints of the character indi- 
cated as they shall find necessary, convenient, and effec- 
tual for the public safety. It is further directed that 
whenever any order shall be made affecting the personal 
liberty of an alien reports of the same and of the causes 
thereof shall be made to the War Department for the 
consideration of the Department of State. 



1861-1865 225* 

Answer to the "Prayer of Twenty Millions'* (August 
22, 1862) 

Hon. Horace Greeley. 

Dear Sir : — I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed 
to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be 
in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I 
may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here con- 
trovert them. If there be in it any inferences which I 
may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here 
argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an 
impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to 
an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be 
right. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I 
have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national 
authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be, 
"the Union as it was." If there be those who would not 
save the Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those 
who would not save the Union unless they could at the 
same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 
My paramount object in this struggle as to save the Union, 
and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could 
save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; 
and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would 
do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving 
others alone, I would also do that. What I dp about 
slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps 



226 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because 
I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall 
do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts 
the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe 
doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct 
errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new 
views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I 
have here stated my purpose according to my view of 
official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft- 
expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could 
be free. 



Colonization of Negroes (August 14, 1862) 

This afternoon the President of the United States gave 
an audience to a committee of colored men at the' White 
House. They were introduced by Kev. J. Mitchell, Com- 
missioner of Emigration. E. M. Thomas, the chairman, 
remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what 
the Executive had to say to them. 

Having all been seated, the President, after a few 
preliminary observations, informed them that a sum of 
money had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at 
his disposition, for the purpose of aiding the colonization, 
in some country, of the people, or a portion of them, of 
African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had 
for a long time been his inclination, to favor that cause. 
And why, he asked, should the people of your race be 
colonized, and where? Why should they leave this coun- 
try? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper con- 
sideration. You and we are different races. We have 



1861-1865 227 

between us a broader difference than exists between almost 
any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need 
not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disad- 
vantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffer very 
greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours 
suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each 
side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, 
why we should be separated. You here are free men, I 
suppose. 

A YoiCE — Yes, sir. 

The President — Perhaps you have long been free, or 
all your lives. Your race are -suffering, in my judgment, 
the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even 
when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed 
from being placed on an equality with the white race. 
You are cut off from many of the advantages which the 
other race enjoys. The aspiration of men is to enjoy 
equality with the best when free, but on this broad con- 
tinent not a single man of your race is made the equal 
of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the 
best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not propose to 
discuss this, but to present it as a fact, with which we have 
to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact about 
which we all think and feel alike, I and you. We look 
to our condition. Owing to the existence of the two 
races on this continent, I need not recount to you the 
effects upon white men, growing out of the institution 
of slavery. 

I believe in its general evil effects on the white race. 
See our present condition — the country engaged in war — 
our white men cutting one another's throats — ^none know- 



228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing how far it will extend — and then consider what we 
know to be the truth: But for your race among us 
there could not be war, although many men engaged on 
either side do not care for you one way or the other. 
Nevertheless I repeat, without the institution of slavery 
and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have 
an existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be 
separated. I know that there are free men among you, 
who, even if they could better their condition, are not 
as much inclined to' go out of the country as those who, 
being slaves, could obtain their freedom on this condi- 
tion. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the 
way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot 
see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may 
believe that you can live in Washington, or elsewhere in 
the United States, the remainder of your life, as easily, 
perhaps more so, than you can in any foreign country; 
and hence you may come to the conclusion that you have 
nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. 
This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely 
selfish view of the case. You ought to do something to 
help those who are not so fortunate as yourselves. There 
is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as 
it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us. 
Now, if you could give a start to the white people, you 
would open a wide door for many to be made free. If 
we deal with those who are not free at the beginning, and 
whose intellects are clouded by slavery, we have very poor 
material to start with. If intelligent colored men, such 
as are before me, would move in this matter, much might 
be accomplished. It is exceedingly important that we 



1861-1865 229 

have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white 
men, and not those who have been systematically op- 
pressed. There is much to encourage you. For the sake 
of your race you should sacrifice something of your pres- 
ent comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that 
respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought 
throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate 
the condition of those who have been subject to the hard 
usages of the world. It is different to make a man miser- 
able while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims 
kindred to the great God who made him. In the Ameri- 
can Revolutionary war sacrifices were made by men en- 
gaged in it, but they were cheered by the future. General 
"Washington himself endured greater physical hardships 
than if he had remained a British subject, yet he was 
a happy man because he had engaged in benefiting his 
race, in doing something for the children of his neighbors, 
having none of his own. 

The colony of Liberia has been in existence a long time. 
In a certain sense it is a success. The old President of 
Liberia, Roberts, has just been with me — the first time 
I ever saw him. He says they have within the bounds of 
that colony between three and four hundred thousand 
people, or more than in some of our old States, such as 
Rhode Island or Delaware, or in some of our newer 
States, and less than in some of our larger ones. They 
are not all American colonists or their descendants. 
Something less than 12,000 have been sent thither from 
this country. Many of the original settlers have died; 
yet, like people elsewhere, their offspring outnumber those 



230 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

deceased. The question is, if the colored people are 
persuaded to go anywhere, why not there? 

One reason for unwillingness to do so is that some of 
you would rather remain within reach of the country of 
your nativity. I do not know how much attachment you 
may have toward our race. It does not strike me that 
you have the greatest reason to love them. But still you 
are attached to them, at all events. 

The place I am thinking about for a colony is in Cen- 
tral America. It is nearer to us than Liberia — not much 
more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven 
days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia, it is a great line 
of travel — it is a highway. The country is a very ex- 
cellent one for any people, and with great natural re- 
sources and advantages, and especially because of the 
similarity of climate with your native soil, thus being 
suited to your physical condition. The particular place 
I have in view is to be a great highway from the Atlantic 
or Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and this par- 
ticular place has all the advantages for a colony. On 
both sides there are harbors — among the finest in the 
world. Again, there is evidence of very rich coal mines. 
A certain amount of coal is valuable in any country. 
Why I attach so much importance to coal is, it will af- 
ford an opportunity to the inhabitants for immediate 
employment till they get ready to settle permanently in 
their homes. If you take colonists where there is no 
good landing, there is a bad show; and so where there 
is nothing to cultivate and of which to make a farm. 
But if something is started so that you can get your daily 
bread as soon as reach you there, it is a great advantage. 



1861-1865 231 

Coal land is the best thing I know of with which to com- 
mence an enterprise. 

To return — ^you have been talked to upon this sub- 
ject, and told that a speculation is intended by gentle- 
men who have an interest in the country, including the 
coal-mines. We have been mistaken all our lives if we 
do not know whites, as well as blacks, look to their self- 
interest. Unless among those deficient of intellect, every- 
body you trade with makes something. You meet with 
these things here and everywhere. If such persons have 
what will be an advantage to them, the question is whether 
it cannot be made of advantage to you. You are intelli- 
gent, and know that success does not so much depend 
on external help as on self-reliance. Much, therefore, de- 
pends upon yourselves. As to the coal-mines, I think I 
see the means available for your self-reliance. I shall, if 
I get a sufficient number of you engaged, have provision 
made that you shall not be wronged. If you wiU engage 
in the enterprise, I will spend some of the money in- 
trusted to me. I am not sure you will succeed. The gov- 
ernment may lose the money; but we cannot succeed un- 
less we try, and we think with care we can succeed. The 
political affairs in Central America are not in quite as 
satisfactory a condition as I wish. There are contending 
factions in that quarter, but it is true all the factions are 
agreed alike on the subject of colonization, and want it, 
and are more generous than we are here. 

To your colored race they have no objection. I would 
endeavor to have you made the equals, and have the best 
assurance that you should be the equals, of the best. 

The practical thing I want to ascertain is whether I 



232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

can get a number of able-bodied men, with their wives 
and children, who are willing to go when I present evi- 
dence of encouragement and protection. Could I get a 
hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and 
children, and able to "cut their own fodder," so to speak? 
Can I have fifty? If I could find twenty-five able-bodied 
men, with a mixture of women and children — good things 
in the family relation, I think, — I could make a success- 
ful commencement. I want you to let me know whether 
this can be done or not. This is the practical part of my 
wish to see you. These are subjects of very great im- 
portance — worthy of a month's study, instead of a speech 
delivered in an hour. I ask you, then, to consider seri- 
ously, not pertaining to yourselves merely, nor for your 
race and ours for the present time, but as one of the 
things, if successfully managed, for the good of man- 
kind — not confined to the present generation, but as 

"From age to age descends the lay 
To millions yet to be, 
Till far its echoes roll away 
Into eternity." 

The above is merely given as the substance of the 
President's remarks. 

The chairman of the delegation briefly replied that 
they would hold a consultation, and in a short time give 
an answer. 

The President said : Take your full time — ^no hurry at 
all. 

The delegation then withdrew. 



1861-1865 233 

Delay in Emancipation (September 13, 1862) 

The subject presented in the memorial is one upon which 
I have thought much for weeks past, and I may even say 
for months. I am approached with the most opposite 
opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are 
equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I 
am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken 
in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope 
it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is prob- 
able that God would reveal his will to others, on a point 
so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he 
would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more de- 
ceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire 
to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I 
can learn what it is I will do it ! These are not, however, 
the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that 
I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the 
plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is pos- 
sible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. 

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. For 
instance, the other day, four gentlemen of standing and 
intelligence from New York called as a delegation on 
business connected with the war; but before leaving two 
of them earnestly besought me to proclaim general eman- 
cipation, upon which the other two at once attacked them. 
You know also that the last session of Congress had a 
decided majority of antislavery men, yet they could not 
unite on this policy. And the same is true of the re- 
ligious people. Why, the rebel soldiers are praying with 
a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than our own troops. 



234 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

and expecting God to favor their side: for one of our 
soldiers who had been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson 
a few days since that he met nothing so discouraging as 
the evident sincerity of those he was among in their 
prayers. But we will talk over the merits of the case. 

What good would a proclamation of emancipation from 
me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want 
to issue a document that the whole world will see must 
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the 
comet! Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot 
even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is 
there a single court, or magistrate or individual that 
would be influenced by it there? And what reason is 
there to think it would have any greater effect upon the 
slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, 
and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of 
rebel masters who come within our lines? Yet I cannot 
learn that that law has caused a single slave to come 
over to us. And suppose they could be induced by a 
proclamation of freedom from me to throw themselves 
upon us, what should we do with them? How can we 
feed and care for such a multitude? General Butler 
wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more ra- 
tions to the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the 
white troops under his command. They eat, and that is 
all; though it is true General Butler is feeding the whites 
also by the thousand; for it nearly amounts to a famine 
there. If, now, the pressure of the war should call off 
our forces from New Orleans to defend some other point, 
what is to prevent the masters from reducing the blacks 
to slavery again? for I am told that whenever the rebels 



1861-1865 235 

take any black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately 
auction them off. They did so with those they took 
from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a 
few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously at- 
tacked for it! For instance, when, after the late battles 
at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Wash- 
ington under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring 
in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who went 
along to help, and sent them into slavery, Horace Greeley 
said in his paper that the government would probably 
do nothing about it. What could I do? 

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result 
of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation 
as you desire? Understand, I raise no objections against 
it on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as commander- 
in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose 
I have a right to take any measure which may best sub- 
due the enemy, nor do I urge objections of a moral na- 
ture, in view of possible consequences of insurrection and 
massacre at the South. I view this matter as a practical 
war measure, to be decided on according to the advan- 
tages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of 
the rebellion. 

I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or at 
least its sine qua non. The ambition of politicians may 
have instigated them to act, but they would have been 
impotent without slavery as their instrument. I will 
also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, 
and convince them that we are incited by something more 
than ambition. I grant, further, that it would help some- 
what at the North, though not so much, I fear, as you 



236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and those you represent imagine. Still, some additional 
strength would be added in that way to the war, and 
then, unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by draw- 
ing off their laborers, which is of great importance; but 
I am not so sure we could do much with the blacks. If 
we were to arm them, I fear that in a few weeks the arms 
would be in the hands of the rebels; and, indeed, thus 
far we have not had arms enough to equip our white 
troops. I will mention another thing, though it meet 
only your scorn and contempt. There are fifty thousand 
bayonets in the Union armies from the border slave States. 
It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of a 
proclamation such as you desire, they should go over to 
the rebels. I do not think they all would — not so many, 
indeed, as a year ago, or as six months ago — not so many 
to-day as yesterday. Every day increases their Union 
feeling. They are also getting their pride enlisted, and 
want to beat the rebels. Let me say one thing more: I 
think you should admit that we already have an impor- 
tant principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact 
that constitutional government is at stake. This is a fun- 
damental idea going down about as deep as anything. 

Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned 
these objections. They indicate the difficulties that have 
thus far prevented my action in some such way as you 
desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of 
liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advise- 
ment; and I can assure you that the subject is on my 
mind, by day and night, more than any jother. What- 
ever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. I trust that 



1861-1865 237 

in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views 
I have not in any respect injured your feelings. 



Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 

1862) 

By the President of the United States of America: 
A Proclamation 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of 
America and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as 
heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of 
practically restoring the constitutional relation between 
the United States and each of the States and the people 
thereof in which States that relation is or may be sus- 
pended or disturbed. 

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Con- 
gress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical 
measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance 
or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people 
whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United 
States, and which States may then have voluntarily 
adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate 
or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective 
limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African 
descent with their consent upon this continent or else- 
where, with the previously obtained consent of the gov- 
ernments existing there, will be continued. 

That on the 1st day of January, a.d., 1863, all persons 
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a 



238 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against 
the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and for- 
ever free; and the executive government of the United 
States, including the military and naval authority thereof, 
will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons 
and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual 
freedom. 

That the Executive will on the 1st day of January 
aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts 
of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respec- 
tively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; 
and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall 
on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress 
of the United States by members chosen thereto at elec- 
tions wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such 
States shall have participated shall, in the absence of 
strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evi- 
dence that such State and the people thereof are not then 
in rebellion against the United States. 

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress 
entitled "An act to make an additional article of war," 
approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words 
and figure following: 

"Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That 
hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional 
article of war for the government of the Army of the United 
States and shall be obeyed and observed as such. 

*'Abt. — ^AU officers or persons in the military or naval 



1861-1865 239 

service of the United States are prohibited from employing 
any of the forces under their respective commands for the 
purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may 
have escaped from any persons to whom such service or 
labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be 
found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall 
be dismissed from the service. 

"Sec. 2. And he it further enacted, That this act shall 
take effect from and after its passage." 

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled 
"An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and 
rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, 
and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and 
which sections are in the words and figures following: 

"Sec. 9. And he it further enacted^ That all slaves of 
persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion 
against the Government of the United States, or who 
shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping 
from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of 
the army, and all slaves captured from such persons or 
deserted by them and coming under the control of the 
Government of the United States, and all slaves of such 
persons found on [or] being within any place occupied 
by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of 
the United States, shall be deemed captives of war and 
shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held 
as slaves. 

"Sec. 10. And he it further enacted. That no slave 
escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of 
Columbia from any other State shall be delivered up or 



240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for 
crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the per- 
son claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the 
person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is 
alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne 
arms against the United States in the present rebellion, 
nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no 
person engaged in the military or naval service of the 
United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume 
to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to 
the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up 
any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dis- 
missed from the service." 

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons 
engaged in the military and naval service of the United 
States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respec- 
tive spheres of service, the act and sections above re- 
cited. 

And the Executive will in due time recommend that 
all citizens of the United States who shall have remained 
loyal thereto throughout the rebellion shall (upon the res- 
toration of the constitutional relation between the United 
States and their respective States and people, if that re- 
lation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be com- 
pensated for all losses by acts of the United States, in- 
cluding the loss of slaves. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and 
caused the seal of the United States to be aflixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this twen- 
ty-second day of September, in the year of our 



1861-1865 241 

[Seal.] Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, 
and of the independence of the United States the 
eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President: 
William H. Seward, 
Secretary of State. 

The Judgment of the Country (September 24, 1862) 

REPLY TO SERENADE, SEPTEMBER 24, 1862 

I appear before you to do little more than acknowledge 
the courtesy you pay me, and to thank you for it. I have 
not been distinctly informed why it is that on this occa- 
sion you appear to do me this honor, though I suppose it 
is because of the proclamation. What I did, I did after 
a very full deliberation, and under a very heavy and 
solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God 
I have made no mistake. I shall make no attempt on this 
occasion to sustain what I have done or said by any 
comment. It is now for the country and the world to 
pass judgment and, maybe, take action upon it. 

I will say no more upon this subject. In my position 
I am environed with difficulties. Yet they are scarcely 
so great as the difficulties of those who upon the battle- 
field are endeavoring to purchase with their blood and 
their lives the. future happiness and prosperity of this 
country. Let us never forget them. On the fourteenth 
and seventeenth days of this present month there have 
been battles bravely, skillfully, and successfully fought. 



242 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

We do not yet know the particulars. Let us be sure that, 
in giving praise to certain individuals, we do no injustice 
to others. I only ask you, at the conclusion of these 
few remarks, to give three hearty cheers for all good 
and brave officers and men who fought those successful 
battles. 



The Slowness of the War (November 4, 1862) 

To Carl Schurz: 

I have received and read your letter of the 20th. The 
purport of it is that we lost the late elections and the ad- 
ministration is failing because the war is unsuccessful, 
and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly 
to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails 
the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for 
it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed 
if I could do better. You think I could do better; there- 
fore you blame me already. I think I could not do bet- 
ter; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand 
you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are 
not Republicans, provided they have "heart in it." 
Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge 
of hearts, or of "heart in it" ? If I must discard my own 
judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others ; 
and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to 
reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others — 
not even yourself. For be assured, my dear sir, there are 
men who have "heart in it" that think you are perform- 
ing your part as poorly as you think I am performing 



1861-1865 243 

mine. I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slow- 
ness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them 
I had great fears I should not find successors to them 
who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have 
seen little since to relieve those fears. 

I do not see clearly the prospect of any more rapid 
movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the dif- 
ficulty is in our case rather than in particular generals. 
I wish to disparage no one — certainly not those who sym- 
pathize with me; but I must say I need success more 
than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so 
much greater evidence of getting success from my sym- 
pathizers than from those who are denounced as the con- 
trary. It does seem to me that in the field the two classes 
have been very much alike in what they have done and 
what they have failed to do. In sealing their faith with 
their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohlen and Kichard- 
son. Republicans, did all that men could do ; but did they 
any more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mans- 
field, none of whom were Republicans, and some at least 
of whom have been bitterly and repeatedly denounced to 
me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the 
ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure. 

In answer to your question, "Has it not been publicly 
stated in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a 
fact, that from the commencement of the war the enemy 
was continually supplied with information by some of 
the confidential subordinates of as important an officer 
as Adjutant-General Thomas?" I must say ''No," as far 
as my knowledge extends. And I add that if you can 



244 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

give any tangible evidence upon the subject, I will thank 
you to come to this city and do so. 

Yery truly your friend, 

A. Lincoln. 



Hopes of Peace (December 12, 1862) 

Hon. Fernando Wood. 

My dear Sir: — Your letter of the 8th, with the accom- 
panying note of same date, was received yesterday. 

The most important paragraph in the letter, as I con- 
sider, is in these words: "On the 25th of November 
last I was advised by an authority which I deemed likely 
to be well informed, as well as reliable and truthful, that 
the Southern States would send representatives to the 
next Congress, provided that a full and general amnesty 
should permit them to do so. No guarantee or terms were 
asked for other than the amnesty referred to." 

I strongly suspect your information will prove to be 
groundless; nevertheless, I thank you for communicating 
it to me. Understanding the phrase in the paragraph just 
quoted — "the Southern States would send representatives 
to the next Congress" — to be substantially the same as 
that "the people of the Southern States would cease re- 
sistance, and would reinaugurate, submit to, and main- 
tain the national authority within the limits of such 
States, under the Constitution of the United States," I 
say that in such case the war would cease on the part of 
the United States; and that if within a reasonable time 
"a full and general amnesty" were necessary to such end, 
it would not be withheld. 



1861-1865 245 

I do not think it would be proper now to communi- 
cate this, formally or informally, to the people of the 
Southern States. My belief is that they already know 
it; and when they choose, if ever, they can communicate 
with me unequivocally. Nor do I think it proper now 
to suspend military operations to try any experiment of 
negotiation. 

I should nevertheless receive with great pleasure the 
exact information you now have, and also such other as 
you may in any way obtain. Such information might 
be more valuable before the 1st of January than after- 
wards. 

While there is nothing in this letter which I shall 
dread to see in history, it is, perhaps, better for the pres- 
ent that its existence should not become public. I there- 
fore have to request that you will regard it as confidential. 

1863 
Final Proclamation of Emancipation (January 1, 1863> 

By the PREsroENT OF THE United States of America: 

A Proclamation 
Whereas on the 22d day of September, a.d. 1862, a 
proclamation was issued by the President of the United 
States, containing, among other things, the following, to 
wit: 

"That on the 1st day of January, a.d. 1863, all persons 
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State 
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the 



246 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; 
and the executive government of the United States, includ- 
ing the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize 
and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no 
act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any 
efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

"That the executive will on the 1st day of January afore- 
said, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of 
States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall 
then be in rebellion against the United States; and the 
fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day 
be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United 
States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a 
majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have 
participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing 
testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State 
and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the 
United States." 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States in time of actual armed rebellion against 
the authority and government of the United States, and 
as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said 
rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, a. d. 1863, and 
in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly pro- 
claimed for the full period of one hundred days from 
the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the 
States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, 
respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United 
States the following, to wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. 



1861-1865 247 

Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, 
St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, La- 
fourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including 
the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, 
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia 
(except the forty-eight counties designated as West Vir- 
ginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, North- 
ampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Nor- 
folk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), 
and which excepted parts are for the present left pre- 
cisely as if this proclamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore- 
said, I do order and declare that all persons held as 
slaves within said designated States and parts of States 
are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Execu- 
tive Government of the United States, including the mili- 
tary and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and 
maintain the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be 
free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self- 
defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when 
allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such per- 
sons of suitable condition will be received into the armed 
service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, 
stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts 
in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of 
justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military ne- 
cessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind 
and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 



248 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this first day 
[seal.] of January, a.d. 1863, and of the independence 
of the United States of America the eighty-sev- 
enth. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President: 
WiLLUM H. Seward, 
Secretary of State. 

The Commander-in-Chief to the Generals (January 22— 
October 4, 1863) 

To McClernand {January 22) 

My dear sir: — ^Yours of the 7th was received yesterday. 
I need not recite because you remember the contents. 
The charges in their nature are such that I must know 
as much about the facts involved as you can. I have too 
many family controversies, so to speak, already on my 
hands to voluntarily, or so long as I can avoid it, take up 
another. You are now doing well — well for the country, 
and well for yourself — much better than you could pos- 
sibly be if engaged in open war with General Halleck. 
Allow me to beg that, for your sake, for my sake, and 
for the country's sake, you give your whole attention to the 
better work. 

Your success upon the Arkansas was both brilliant and 
valuable, and is fully appreciated by the country and 
government. 



1861-1865 249 

To Hooker {Jan. 26) 

General : I have placed you at the head of the Army of 
the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what ap- 
pear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best 
for you to know that there are some things in regard to 
which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to 
be a brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. 
I also believe you do not mix politics with your pro- 
fession, in which you are right. You have confidence in 
yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable qual- 
ity. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, 
does good rather than harm; but I think that during 
General Burnside's command of the army you have taken 
counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as 
you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country 
and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. 
I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your re- 
cently saying that hoth the army and the government 
needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in 
spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only 
those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. 
What I now ash of you is military success, and I will risk 
the dictatorship. The government will support you to the 
utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than 
it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear 
that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the 
army, of criticizing their commander and withholding con- 
fidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist 
you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor 
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out 



250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now 
beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy 
and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. 
Yours very truly. 

To Rosecrans (May 20) 

Yours of yesterday in relation to Colonel Haggard is 
received. I am anxious that you shall not misunderstand 
me. In no case have I intended to censure you or to 
question your ability. In Colonel Haggard's case I 
meant no more than to suggest that possibly you might 
have been mistaken in a point that could (be) corrected. 

I frequently make mistakes myself in the m,any things 
I am compelled to do hastily. 

To Burnside (July 27) 

Let me explain. In General Grant's first despatch after 
the fall of Vicksburg, he said, among other things, he 
would send the Ninth Corps to you. Thinking it would 
be pleasant to you, I asked the Secretary of War to tele- 
graph you the news. For some reasons never mentioned 
to us by General Grant, they have not been sent, though 
we have seen outside intimations that they took part in 
the expedition against Jackson. General Grant is a copi- 
ous worker and fighter, hut a very meager writer or 
telegrapher. No doubt he changed his purpose in regard 
to the Ninth Corps for some sufficient reason, but has 
forgotten to notify us of it. 



1861-1865 251 

To Schurz (April 11) 

My dear Sir: I cannot comply with your request to 
take your division away from the Army of the Potomac. 
General HooJcer does not wish it done. I do not myself 
see a good reason why it should be done. The division 
will do itself and its officers more honor and the country 
more service where it is. Besides these general reasons, 
as I understand, the Army of the Potomac will move be- 
fore these proposed changes could be conveniently made. 
I always wish to oblige you, but I cannot in this case. 

Yours truly, 

To Eoolcer (May 7) 

My dear Sir: The recent movement of your army is 
ended without effecting its object, except, perhaps, some 
important breakings of the enemy's communications. 
What next? If possible, I would be very glad of another 
movement early enough to give us some benefit from the 
fact of the enemy's communication being broken; but 
neither for this reason nor any other do I wish anything 
done in desperation or rashness. An early movement 
would also help to supersede the bad moral effect of the 
recent one, which is said to be considerably injurious. 
Have you already in your mind a plan wholly or partially 
formed? If you have, prosecute it without interference 
from me. If you have not, please inform me, so that I, 
incompetent as I may be, can try and assist in the forma- 
tion of some plan for the army. 



252 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

To McDowell {May 28) 

I think the evidence now preponderates that Ewell and 
Jackson are still about Winchester. Assuming this, it is 
for you a question of legs. Put in all the speed you can. 
I have told Fremont as much, and directed him to drive 
at them as fast as possible. By the way, I suppose you 
know Fremont has got up to Moorefield, instead of going 
to Harrisonburg. 

To McClellan (May 28) 

I am very glad of General F. J. Porter's victory. Still, 
if it was a total rout of the enemy, I am puzzled to know 
why the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad was not 
seized again, as you say you have all the railroads but 
the Richmond and Fredericksburg. I am puzzled to see 
how, lacking that, you can have any, except the scrap 
from Richmond to West Point. The scrap of the Vir- 
ginia Central from Richmond to Hanover Junction, with- 
out more, is simply nothing. That the whole of the 
enemy is concentrating on Richmond, I think cannot be 
certainly known to you or me. 

To Rosecrans (May 28) 

I would not push you to any rashness, but I am very 
anxious that you do your utmost short of rashness, to 
keep Bragg from getting off to help Johnston against 
Grant. 



1861-1865 253 

To McDowell {May 28) 

You say General Geary's scouts report that they find 
no enemy this side of the Blue Kidge. Neither do I. 
Have they been to the Blue Ridge looking for them? 

To Hooker (June 5) 

Yours of to-day was received an hour ago. So much 
of professional military skill is requisite to answer it, 
that I have turned the task over to General Halleck. He 
promises to perform it with his utmost care. I have but 
one idea which I think worth suggesting to you, and that 
is, in case you find Lee coming to the north of the Eap- 
pahannock, I would by no means cross to the south of it. 
If he should leave a rear force at Fredericksburg, tempt- 
ing you to fall upon it, it would fight in intrenchments 
and have you at disadvantage, and so, man for man, worst 
you at that point, while his main force would in some 
way be getting an advantage of you northward. In one 
word, I would not take any risk of heing entangled upon 
the river, like an ox jumped half over a fence and liable to 
he torn by dogs front and rear without a fair chance to 
gore one way or kick the other. If Lee would come to my 
side of the river, I would keep on the same side, and fight 
him or act on the defense, according as might be my 
estimate of his strength relatively to my own. But these 
are mere suggestions which I desire to be controlled by 
the judgment of yourself and General Halleck. 



254 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

To Hooker (June 10) 

Your long despatch of to-day is just received. If left 
to me, I would not go south of the Kappahannock upon 
Lee's moving north of it. If you had Richmond invested 
to-day you would not be able to take it in twenty days; 
meanwhile your communications, and with them your 
army, would be ruined. I think Lee's army, and not 
Richmond, is your true objective point. If he comes 
towards the upper Potomac, follow on his flank, and on 
the inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens 
his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he 
stays where he is, fret him, and fret him. 

To Hooker {June IJi) 

So far as we can make out here, the enemy have Mil- 
roy surrounded at Winchester, and Tyler at Martinsburg. 
If they could hold out a few days, could you help them? 
If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg and the tail 
of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and Chan- 
cellorsville, the animal must he very slim somewhere; 
could you not break him? 

To Schenck (June IJf.) 

Get General Milroy from Winchester to Harper's 
Ferry, if possible. He will be "gobbled up" if he re- 
mains, if he is not already past salvation. 



1861-1865 255 

To Hooker (June 16) 

My dear General : I send you this by the hand of Cap- 
tain Dahlgren. Your despatch of 11:30 A. M. to-day is 
just received. When you say I have long been aware 
that you do not enjoy the confidence of the major-gen- 
eral commanding, you state the case much too strongly. 

You do not lack his confidence in any degree to do you 
any harm. On seeing him, after telegraphing you this 
morning, I found him more nearly agreeing with you 
than I was myself. Surely you do not mean to under- 
stand that I am withholding my confidence from you 
when I happen to express an opinion (certainly never dis- 
courteously) differing from one of your own. 

I believe Halleck is dissatisfied with you to this extent 
only, that he knows that you write and telegraph {"re- 
port," as he calls it) to me. I think he is wrong to find 
fault with this ; but I do not think he withholds any sup- 
port from you on account of it. If you and he would 
v^e the same frankness to one another, and to me, that I 
use to both of you, there would be no difficulty. I need 
and must have the professional skill of both, and yet these 
suspicions tend to deprive me of both. 

I believe you are aware that since you took command 
of the army I have not believed you had any chance to 
effect anything till now. As it looks to me, Lee's now 
returning toward Harper's Ferry gives you back the 
chance that I thought McClellan lost last fall. Quite 
possibly I was wrong both then and now; but, in the 
great responsibility resting upon me, I cannot be entirely 
silent. Now, all I ask is that you will he in such mood 



250 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

xhat we can get into our action the hest cordial judgment 
of yourself and General Hallech, with my poor mite 
added, if indeed he and you shall think it entitled to any 
consideration at all. 



To Grant {July 13) 

My dear General: I do not remember that you and I 
ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful ac- 
knowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have 
done the country. I wish to say a word further. When 
you first reached the vicinity of Yicksburg, I thought you 
should do what you finally did — march the troops across 
the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus 
go below; and I never had any faith, except a general 
hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass 
expedition and the like could succeed. When you got 
below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I 
thought you should go down the river and join General 
Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big 
Black, I feared it was a mistake. 1 now wish to make the 
personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was 
wrong. 

To McClernand (August 12) 

My dear Sir: Our friend William G. Greene has just 
presented a kind letter in regard to yourself, addressed 
to me by our other friends Yates, Hatch, and Dubois. 

I doubt whether your present position is more painful 
to you than to myself. Grateful for the patriotic stand 



1861-1865 257 

so early taken by you in this life-and-death struggle of 
the nation, I have done whatever has appeared practicable 
to advance you and the public interest together. No 
charges, with a view to a trial, have been preferred against 
you by any one; nor do I suppose any will be. All there 
is, so far as I have heard, is General Grant's statement of 
his reasons for relieving you. And even this I have not 
seen or sought to see; because it is a case, as appears to 
me, in which I could do nothing without doing harm. 
General Grant and yourself have been conspicuous in our 
most important successes; and for me to interfere and 
thus magnify a breach between you could not but be of 
evil effect. Better leave it where the law of the case has 
placed it. For me to force you back upon General Grant 
would be forcing him to resign. I cannot give you a new 
command, because we have no forces except such as al- 
ready have commanders. 

I am constantly pressed by those who scold before they 
think, or without thinking at all, to give commands re- 
spectively to Fremont, McClellan, Butler, Sigel, Curtis, 
Hunter, Hooker, and perhaps others, when, all else out 
of the way, I have no commands to give them. This is 
now your case; which, as I have said, pains me not less 
than it does you. My belief is that the permanent esti- 
mate of what a general does in the field is fixed by the 
"cloud of witnesses" who have been with him in the field, 
and that, relying on these, he who has the right need not 
to fear. 

Your friend as ever 



258 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

To Bosecrans (Ocioher Jf) 

Yours of yesterday received. If we can hold Chat- 
tanooga and East Tennessee, I think the rehellion must 
dwindle and die. I think you and Burnside can do this, 
and hence doing so is your main object. Of course to 
greatly damage or destroy the enemy in your front would 
be a greater object, because it would include the former 
and more, but it is not so certainly within your power. 
I understand the main body of the enemy is very near 
you, so near that you could "board at home," so to speak, 
and menace or attach him any day. Would not the doing 
of this be your best mode of counteracting his raid on 
your communications? But this is not an order. I in- 
tend doing something like what you suggest whenever the 
case shall appear ripe enough to have it accepted in the 
true understanding rather than as a confession of weak- 
ness and fear. 

War on the Ministers (January 2, 1863) 

Major-General Curtis. 

My dear Sir: — Yours of December 29 by the hand of 
Mr. Strong is just received. The day I telegraphed you 
suspending the order in relation to Dr. McPheeters, he, 
with Mr. Bates, the Attorney-General, appeared before me 
and left with me a copy of the order mentioned. The 
doctor also showed me the copy of an oath which he said 
he had taken, which is indeed very strong and specific. 
He also verbally assured me that he had constantly prayed 



1861-1865 259 

in church for the President and government, as he had 
always done before the present war. In looking" over the 
recitals in your order, I do not see that this matter of the 
prayer as he states it, is negatived, nor that any violation 
of his oath is charged, nor, in fact, that anything specific 
is alleged against him. The charges are all general: that 
he has a rebel wife and rebel relations, that he sympa- 
thizes with rebels, and that he exercises rebel influence. 
Now, after talking with him, I tell you frankly I believe 
he does sympathize with the rebels, but the question re- 
mains whether such a man, of unquestioned good moral 
character, who has taken such an oath as he has, and 
cannot even be charged with violating it, and who can 
be charged with no other specific act or omission, can, with 
safety to the government, be exiled upon the suspicion of 
his secret sympathies. But I agree that this must be left 
to you, who are on the spot; and if, after all, you think 
the public good requires his removal, my suspension of 
the order is withdrawn, only with this qualification, that 
the time during the suspension is not to be counted against 
him. I have promised him this. But I must add that 
the United States Government must not, as by this order, 
undertake to run the churches. When an individual in 
a church or out of it becomes dangerous to the public in- 
terest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, 
take care of themselves. It will not do for the United 
States to appoint trustees, supervisors, or other agents 
for the churches. 

Yours very truly, 

A. LlNCOT.N. 



260 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 



P. S. The committee composed of Messrs. Yeatman 
and Filley (Mr. Broadhead not attending) has presented 
your letter and the memorial of sundry citizens. On 
the whole subject embraced exercise your best judgment, i 
with a sole view to the public interest, and I will not ^| 
interfere without hearing you. 

Prayers of God's People (January 5, 1863) 

My Good Friends : 

The Honorable Senator Harlan has just placed in my \ 
hands your letter of the 27th of December which I have 
read with pleasure and gratitude. 

It is most cheering and encouraging for me to know 
that in the efforts which I have made and am making 
for the restoration of a righteous peace to our country, 
I am upheld and sustained by the good wishes and prayers 
of God's people. No one is more deeply than myself aware 
that without His favor our highest wisdom is but as 
foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts would 
avail nothing in the shadow of His displeasure. 

I am conscious of no desire for my country's welfare 
that is not in consonance with His will, and of no plan 
upon which we may not ask His blessing. It seems to 
me that if there be one subject upon which all good 
men may unitedly agree, it is imploring the gracious 
favor of the God of Nations upon the struggles our people 
are making for the preservation of their precious birth- 
right of civil and religious liberty. 

Truly your friend. 



1861-1865 261 

The Long-enduring Consequences (February 22, 1863) 

Kev. Alexander Eeed. 

My dear Sir: Your note, by which you, as General 
Superintendent of the United States Christian Commis- 
sion, invite me to preside at a meeting to be held this 
iay at the hall of the House of Representatives in this city, 
is received. 

While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must de- 
cline to preside, I cannot withhold my approval of the 
meeting and its worthy objects. 

Whatever shall be, sincerely and in God's name, devised 
for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard 
spheres of duty, can 'scarcely fail to be blessed; and 
whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unrea- 
soning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jeal- 
ousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, 
and to fix them on the vast and long-enduring conse- 
quences, for weal or for woe, which are to result from the 
struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the 
Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, cannot 
but be well for us all. 

The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath 
coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest 
interests of this life and of that to come, is most propi- 
tious for the meeting proposed. 

Your obedient servant. 



262 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

Recalling Soldiers to Their Regiments (March 10, 1863] 

By the President of the United States: 
A Proclamation 

In pursuance of the twenty-sixth section of the act o: 
Congress entitled ''An act for enrolling and calling ou 
the national forces, and for other purposes," approved or 
the 3d day of March, 1863, I, Abraham Lincoln, Presi' 
dent and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy oi 
the United States, do hereby order and command that al. 
soldiers enlisted or drafted in the service of the Unitec 
States, now absent from their regiments without leave 
shall forthwith return to their respective regiments. 

And I do hereby declare and proclaim that all soldiers 
now absent from their respective regiments without leav€ 
who shall, on or before the first day of April, 1863, report 
themselves at any rendezvous designated by the general 
orders of the War Department No. 58, hereto annexed, 
may be restored to their respective regiments without 
punishment, except the forfeiture of pay and allowances 
during their absence; and all who do not return within 
the time above specified shall be arrested as deserters andj 
punished as the law provides ; and 

Whereas evil-disposed and disloyal persons at sundry^ 
places have enticed and procured soldiers to desert and;! 
absent themselves from their regiments, thereby weak-i 
ening the strength of the armies and prolonging the war,i 
giving aid arud comfort to the enemy, and cruelly exposing 
the gallant and faithful soldiers remaining in the ranks 
to increased hardships and danger: 



1861-1865 263 

I do therefore call upoo all patriotic and faitkful citi- 
zens to oppose and resist the aforementioned dangerous 
and treasonable crimes, and to aid in restoring to their 
regiments all soldiers absent without leave, and to assist 
in the execution of the act of Congress "for enrolling and 
calling out the national forces, and for other purposes," 
and to support the proper authorities in the prosecution 
and punishment of offenders against said act and in sup- 
pressing the insurrection and rebellion. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand. 

Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of 
March, A. D. 1863, and of the independence of the United 
States the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



Military Service of Aliens (May 8, 1863) 

By the President of the United States of America: 
A Proclamation. 

Whereas the Congress of the United States, at its 
last session, enacted a law entitled "An act for enrolling 
and calling out the national forces and for other pur- 
poses," which was approved on the 3rd day of March last; 
and 

Whereas it is recited in the said act that there now 
exists in the United States an insurrection and rebellion 
against the authority thereof, and it is, under the Consti- 
tution of the United Sates, the duty of the government to 
suppress insurrection and rebellion, to guarantee to each 



264 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

State a republican form of government, and to preserve 
the public tranquillity; and 

Whereas for these high purposes a military force is 
indispensable, to raise and support which all persons ought 
willingly to contribute; and 

Whereas no service can be more praiseworthy and hon- 
orable than that which is rendered for the maintenance 
of the Constitution and the Union, and the consequent 
preservation of free government; and 

Whereas, for the reasons thus recited, it was enacted 
by the said statute that all able-bodied male citizens of 
the United States, and persons of foreign birth who shall 
have declared on oath their intention to become citizens 
under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the 
ages of twenty and forty-five years (with certain excep- 
tions not necessary to be here mentioned), are declared 
to constitute the national forces, and shall be liable to 
perform military duty in the service of the United States 
when called out by the President for that purpose; and 

Whereas it is claimed by and in behalf of persons of 
foreign birth within the ages specified in said act, who 
have heretofore declared on oath their intentions to be- 
come citizens under and in pursuance of the laws of the 
United States, and who have not exercised the right of 
suffrage or any other political franchise under the laws of 
the United States, or of any of the States thereof, that 
they are not absolutely concluded by their aforesaid 
declaration of intention from renouncing their purpose 
to become citizens, and that, on the contrary, such persons 
under treaties or the law of nations retain a right to 
renounce that purpose and to forego the privileges of 



1861-1865 265 

citizenship and residence within the United States under 
the obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress : 
Now, therefore, to avoid all misapprehensions concern- 
ing the liability of persons concerned to perform the 
service required by such enactment, and to give it full 
effect, I do hereby order and proclaim that no plea of 
alienage will be received or allowed to exempt from the 
obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress any 
person of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath 
his intention to become a citizen of the United States 
under the laws thereof, and who shall be found within the 
United States at any time during the continuance of the 
present insurrection and rebellion, at or after the expira- 
tion of the period of sixty-five days from the date of this 
proclamation; nor shall any such plea of alienage be 
allowed in favor of any such person who has so, as afore- 
said, declared his intention to become a citizen of the 
United States, and shall have exercised at any time the 
right of suffrage, or any other political franchise, within 
the United States, under the laws thereof, or under the 
laws of any of the several States. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this eighth 
day of May, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
[SEAL.] sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 
independence of the United States the eighty- 
seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



266 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

The Constitution in War (June 29, 1863) 

Gentlemen: — The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic 
State convention, which you present me, together with 
your introductory and closing remarks, being in position 
and argument mainly the same as the resolutions of the 
Democratic meeting at Albany, New York, I refer you 
to my response to the latter as meeting most of the points 
in the former. 

This response you evidently used in preparing your 
remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used with 
accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, I only 
discovered one inaccuracy in matter, which I suppose 
you took from that paper. It is where you say: "The 
undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion 
you have expressed that the Constitution is different in 
time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time 
of peace and public security." 

A recurrence to the paper will show you that I have 
not expressed the opinion you suppose. I expressed the 
opinion that the Constitution is different in its applica- 
tion in cases of rebellion or invasion, involving the public 
safety, from what it is in times of profound peace and 
public security; and this opinion I adhere to, simply 
because, by the Constitution itself, things may be done 
in the one case which may not be done in the other. 

I dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, 
but I must respectfully assure you that you will find 
yourselves at fault should you ever seek for evidence 
to prove your assumption that "I opposed in discussions 
before the people the policy of the Mexican war." 



1861-1865 267 

You say: "Expunge from the Constitution this limita- 
tion upon the power of Congress to suspend the writ of 
habeas corpus, and yet the other guarantees of personal 
liberty would remain unchanged." Doubtless, if this 
clause of the Constitution, improperly called, as I think, 
a limitation upon the power of Congress, were expunged, 
the other guarantees would remain the same; but the 
question is not how those guarantees would stand with 
that clause out of the Constitution, but how they stand 
with that clause remaining in it, in case of rebellion or 
invasion involving the public safety. If the liberty could 
be indulged of expunging that clause, letter and spirit, 
I really think the constitutional argument would be with 
you. 

My general view on this question was stated in the 
Albany response, and hence I do not state it now. I only 
add that, as seems to me, the benefit of the writ of habeas 
corpus is the great means through which the guarantees 
of personal liberty are conserved and made available in 
the last resort; and corroborative of this view is the fact 
that Mr. Yallandigham, in the very case in question, under 
the advice of able lawyers, saw not where else to go but 
to the habeas corpus. But by the Constitution the benefit 
of the writ of habeas corpus itself may be suspended when, 
in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
require it. 

You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I 
may override all the guaranteed rights of individuals, on 
the plea of conserving the public safety — when I may 
choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, 
divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as 



268 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either 
simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that 
nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require 
in cases of rebellion or invasion. 

The Constitution contemplates the question as likely 
to occur for decision, but it does not expressly declare 
who is to decide it. By necessary implication, when re- 
bellion or invasion comes, the decision is to be made from 
time to time; and I think the man whom, for the time, 
the people have, under the Constitution, made the com- 
mander-in-chief of their army and navy, is the man who 
holds the power and bears the responsibility of making 
it. If he uses the power justly, the same people will 
probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their 
hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have 
reserved to themselves in the Constitution. 

The earnestness with which you insist that persons can 
only, in times of rebellion, be lawfully dealt with in 
accordance with the rules for criminal trials and pun- 
ishments in times of peace, induces me to add a word 
to what I said on that point in the Albany response. 

You claim that men may, if they choose, embarrass 
those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebellion, and 
then be dealt with in turn only as if there were no rebel- 
lion. The Constitution itself rejects this view. The mili- 
tary arrests and detentions which have been made, includ- 
ing those of Mr. Yallandigham, which are not different 
in principle from the others, have been for prevention, 
and not for punishment — as injunctions to stay injury, 
as proceedings to keep the peace; and hence, like proceed- 
ings in such cases and for like reasons, they have not been 



1861-1865 269 

accompanied with indictments, or trials by Juries, nor 
in a single case by any punishment whatever, beyond what 
is purely incidental to the prevention. The original sen- 
tence of imprisonment in Mr. Yallandigham's case was 
to prevent injury to the military service only, and the 
modification of it was made as a less disagreeable mode 
to him of securing the same prevention. 

I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio in the case 
of Mr. Vallandigham. Quite surely nothing of the sort 
was or is intended. I was wholly unaware that Mr. 
Vallandigham was, at the time of his arrest, a candidate 
for the Democratic nomination for governor until so in- 
formed by your reading to me the resolutions of the con- 
vention. I am grateful to the State of Ohio for many 
things, especially for the brave soldiers and officers she 
has given in the present national trial to the armies of 
the Union. 

You claim, as I understand, that according to my own 
position in the Albany response, Mr. Vallandigham should 
be released; and this because, as you claim, he has not 
damaged the military service by discouraging enlistments, 
encouraging desertions, or otherwise; and that if he had, 
he should have been turned over to the civil authorities 
under the recent acts of Congress. I certainly do not 
know that Mr. Vallandigham has specifically and by direct 
language advised against enlistments and in favor of 
desertion and resistance to drafting. 

We all know that combinations, armed in some in- 
stances, to resist the arrest of deserters began several 
months ago; that more recently the like has appeared in 
resistance to the enrolment preparatory to a draft; and 



270 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

that quite a number of assassinations have occurred from 
the same animus. These had to be met by military force, 
and this again has led to bloodshed and death. And now, 
under a sense of responsibility more weighty and enduring 
than any which is merely official, I solemnly declare my 
belief that this hindrance of the military, including maim- 
ing and murder, is due to the course in which Mr. Yallan- 
digham has been engaged in a greater degree than to any 
other cause; and it is due to him personally in a greater 
degree than to any other one man. 

These things have been notorious, known to all, and of 
course known to Mr. Yallandigham. Perhaps I would 
not be wrong to say they originated with his special 
friends and adherents. With perfect knowledge of them, 
he has frequently if not constantly made speeches in Con- 
gress and before popular assemblies; and if it can be 
shown that, with these things staring him in the face 
he has ever uttered a word of rebuke or counsel against 
them, it will be a fact greatly in his favor with me, and 
one of which as yet I am totally ignorant. When it is 
known that the whole burden of his speeches has been to 
stir up men against the prosecution of the war, and that 
in the midst of resistance to it he has not been known 
in any instance to counsel against such resistance, it is 
next to impossible to repel the inference that he has coun- 
selled directly in favor of it. 

With all this before their eyes, the convention you 
represent have nominated Mr. Yallandigham for governor 
of Ohio, and both they and you have declared the purpose 
to sustain the national Union by all constitutional means. 



1861-1865 271 

But of course they and you in common reserve to your- 
selves to decide what are constitutional means; and, 
unlike the Albany meeting, you omit to state or intimate 
that in your opinion an army is a constitutional means 
of saving the Union against a rebellion, or even to inti- 
mate that you are conscious of an existing rebellion being 
in progress with the avowed object of destroying that 
very Union. At the same time your nominee for gover- 
nor, in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to 
the world to declare against the use of an army to sup- 
press the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, en- 
courages desertion, resistance to the draft, and the like, 
because it teaches those who incline to desert and to escape 
the draft to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and 
to hope that you will become strong enough to do so. 

After a short personal intercourse with you, gentle- 
men of the committee, I cannot say I think you desire 
this effect to follow your attitude; but I assure you that 
both friends and enemies of the Union look upon it in 
this light. It is a substantial hope, and by consequence a 
real strength to the enemy. If it is a false hope, and 
one which you would willingly dispel, I will make the way 
exceedingly easy. 

I send you duplicates of this letter in order that you, 
or a majority of you, may, if you choose, indorse your 
names upon one of them and return it thus indorsed to 
me with the understanding that those signing are thereby 
committed to the following propositions and to nothing 
else: 

1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, 



2^2 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

the object and tendency of which is to destroy the National 
Union; and that, in your opinion, an army and navy are 
constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion; 

2. That no one of you will do anything which, in his 
own judgment, will tend to hinder the increase, or favor 
the decrease, or lessen the efficiency of the army or navy 
while engaged in the effort to suppress that rebellion; and 

3, That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can 
to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen of the army 
and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress the re- 
bellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided for 
and supported. 

And with the further understanding that upon receiving 
the letter and names thus indorsed, I will cause them to 
be published, which publication shall be, within itseK, a 
revocation of the order in relation to Mr. Yallandigham. 

It will not escape observation that I consent to the 
release of Mr. Yallandigham upon terms not embracing 
any pledge from him or from others as to what he will 
or will not do. I do this because he is not present to 
speak for himself, or to authorize others to speak for him ; 
and because I should expect that on his returning he 
would not put himself practically in antagonism with 
the position of his friends. But I do it chiefly because 
I thereby prevail on other influential gentlemen of Ohio 
to so define their position as to be of immense value to the 
army — thus more than compensating for the consequences 
of any mistake in allowing Mr. Yallandigham to return; 
so that, on the whole, the public safety will not have suf- 
fered by it. Still, in regard to Mr. Yallandigham and all 



1861-1865 273 

others, I must hereafter, as heretofore, do so much as 
the public safety may seem to require. 

I have the honor to be respectfully yours, etc., 

Victory at Gettysburg (July 4, 1863) 

The President announces to the country that news from 
the Army of the Potomac, up to 10 p.m. of the 3d, is such 
as to cover that army with the highest honor, to promise 
a great success to the cause of the Union, and to claim 
the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen; and 
that for this he especially desires that on this day He 
whose will, not ours, should ever be done be everywhere 
remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude. 

"The Fourth of July" (July 7, 1863) 

RESPONSE TO A SERENADE, JULY 7, 1863 

Fellow-Citizens: — I am very glad indeed to see you 
to-night, and yet I will not say I thank you for this 
call; but I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the 
occasion on which you have called. How long ago is it? 
— eighty-odd years since, on the Fourth of July, for the 
first time in the history of the world, a nation, by its 
representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident 
truth "that all men are created equal." That was the 
birthday of the United States of America. Since then 
the Fourth of July has had several very peculiar recog- 
nitions. The two men most distinguished in the fram- 
ing and support of the Declaration were Thomas Jefferson 
and John Adams, the one having penned it, and the other 



274 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

sustained it tlie most forcibly in debate — the only two 
of the fifty-five who signed it and were elected Presidents 
of the United States. Precisely fifty years after they 
put their hands to the paper, it pleased Almighty God to 
take both from this stage of action. This was indeed an 
extraordinary and remarkable event in our history. An- 
other President, five years after, was called from this stage 
of existence on the same day and month of the year; and 
now on this last Fourth of July just passed, when we 
have a gigantic rebellion, at the bottom of which is an 
effort to overthrow the principle that all men were created 
equal, we have the surrender of a most powerful position 
and army on that very day. And not only so, but in the 
succession of battles in Pennsylvania, near to us, through 
three days, so rapidly fought that they might be called 
one great battle, on the first, second, and third of the 
month of July; and on the fourth the cohorts of those 
who opposed the Declaration that all men are created 
equal, "turned tail" and run. 

Gentlemen, this is a glorious theme, and the occasion 
for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy 
of the occasion. I would like to speak in terms of praise 
due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have 
fought in the cause of the Union and liberties of their 
country from the beginning of the war. These are trying 
occasions, not only in success, but for the want of success. 
I dislike to mention the name of one single officer, lest I 
might do wrong to those I might forget. Recent events 
bring up glorious names, and particularly prominent ones ; 
but these I will not mention. Having said this much, 1 1 
will now take the music. 



1861-1865 275 

Effect of Emancipation (August 26, 1863) 

Hon. James C. Conkling. 

My dear Sir : — Your letter inviting me to attend a mass 
meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the 
capital of Illinois, on the 3d day of September, has been 
received. It would be very agreeable for me thus to meet 
my old friends at my own home, but I cannot just now be 
absent from here so long as a visit there would require. 

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain uncon- 
ditional devotion to the Union, and I am sure that my 
old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I 
do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom 
no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to 
the nation's life. 

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such 
I would say: You desire peace, and you blame me that 
we d© not have it. But how can we obtain it ? There are 
but three conceivable ways: First — to suppress the rebel- 
lion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you 
for it ? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not 
for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against 
this. Are you for it? If you are you should say so 
plainly. If you are not for force nor yet for dissolution, 
there only remains some imaginable compromise. 

1 do not believe that any compromise embracing the 
maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I 
learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of 
the rebellion is its military, its army. That army domi- 
nates all the country and all the people within its range. 
Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that 



276 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for 
the present; because such man or men have no power 
whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one 
were made with them. 

To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and 
peace men of the North get together in convention, and 
frame and proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration 
of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used 
to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army 
can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, 
can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper 
compromise to which the controllers of Lee's army are not 
agreed can at all affect that army. In an effort at such 
compromise we would waste time, which the enemy would 
improve to our disadvantage; and that would be all. 

A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with 
those who control the rebel army, or with the people, first 
liberated from the domination of that army by the suc- 
cess of our own army. Now allow me to assure you that 
no word or intimation from that rebel army, or from any 
of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace com- 
promise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All 
charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive 
and groundless. And I promise you that if any such 
proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected 
and kept a secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself 
to be the servant of the people, according to the bond 
of service, the United States Constitution, and that, as 
such, I am responsible to them. 

But, to be plain: You are dissatisfied with me about 
the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion 



1861-1865 277 

between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly 
wish that all men could be free, while you, I suppose, 
do not. Yet, I have neither adopted nor proposed any 
measure which is not consistent with even your view, 
provided you are for the Union. I suggested compensated 
emancipation; to which you replied you wished not to 
be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be 
taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to save 
you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively 
by other means. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation and per- 
haps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitu- 
tional. I think differently. I think the Constitution in- 
vests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in 
time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, 
that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, 
any question that by the law of war, property, both of 
enemies and friends may be taken when needed? And is 
it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the enemy? 
Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when 
they cannot use it, and even destroy their own to keep 
it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their 
power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few 
things regarded as barbSrous or cruel. Among the excep- 
tions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-com- 
batants, male and female. 

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not 
valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is 
valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead 
can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its 
retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why 



278 ABEAHA'M LINCOLN 

better after the retraction than hefore the issue? There 
was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the 
rebellion before the proclamation was issued, the last 
one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice 
that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt re- 
turning to their allegiance. The war has certainly pro- 
gressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclama- 
tion as before. 

I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, 
that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, 
who have given us our most important victories, believe 
the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops 
constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion, 
and that at least one of those important successes could 
not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of 
black soldiers. 

Among the commanders who hold these views are some 
who have never had any affinity with what is called "Aboli- 
tionism," or with "Republican party politics," but who 
hold them purely as military opinions. I submit their 
opinions as entitled to some weight against the objections 
often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks 
are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted 
as such in good faith. 

You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some 
of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. 
Fight you, then, exclusively, to save the Union. I issued 
the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the 
Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance 
to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it 
will be enough time then for you to declare you will 



1861-1865 279 

Qot fight to free negroes. I thought that in your 
struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes 
should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weak- 
3ned the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think 
iifferently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got 
to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers 
to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to 
^ou? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives, 
^hy should they do anything for us if we will do nothing 
for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be 
prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of 
freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept. 

The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes 
jnvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for 
.t; nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they 
net New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing 
heir way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more 
colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On the spot, 
heir part of the history was jotted down in black and 
ivhite. The job was a great national one, and let none 
)e slighted who bore an honorable part in it. And while 
hose who have cleared the great river may well be proud, 
jven that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has 
been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, 
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less 
lote. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At 
dl the watery margins they have been present; not only 
)n the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but 
ilso up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the 
ground was a little damp, they have been and made their 
racks. Thanks to all. For the great Kepublic — for the 



280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

principle it lives by and keeps alive — for man's vast future 
— thanks to all. 

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope ii 
will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be 
worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have 
been proved that among freemen there can be no successful 
appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they whc 
take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the 
cost. And there will be some black men who can remem- 
ber that with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and stead;^ 
eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind 
on to this great consummation; while I fear there will 
be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant 
heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it, 

Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, final tri- 
umph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently appl;^ 
the means, never doubting that a just God, in His owr 
good time, will give us the rightful result. 
Yours very truly, 

Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863) 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Lib- 
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle- 
field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion 
of that field, as a final resting place for those who here 



1861-1865 281 

?ave their lives that that nation might live. It is alto- 
gether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot 

onsecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note, nor long remember what we 

ay here, but it can never forget what they did here. 
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to 
the unfinished work which they who fought here have 
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from 

hese honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devo- 
tion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth. 

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 
8, 1863) 

Whereas, in and by the Constitution of the United 
States, it is provided that the President ^'shall have power 
to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the 
United States, except in cases -of impeachment" ; and 

Whereas a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal State 
governments of several States have for a long time been 
subverted, and many persons have committed, and are 
now guilty of, treason against the United States ; and 



282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, 
laws have been enacted by Congress, declaring forfeitures 
and confiscation of property and liberation of slaves, all 
upon terms and conditions therein stated, and also de- 
claring that the President was thereby authorized at any 
time thereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who 
may have participated in the existing rebellion, in any 
State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such 
exceptions and at such times and on such conditions a£ 
he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and 

Whereas the congressional declaration for limited and 
conditional pardon accords with well-established judicial 
exposition of the pardoning power; and 

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion, the President 
of the United States has issued several proclamations, 
with provisions in regard to the liberation of slaves ; and 

Whereas it is now desired by some persons heretofore 
engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to 
the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal State gov- 
ernments within and for their respective States; there- 
fore 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do 
proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, 
directly or by implication, participated in the existing re- 
bellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon 
is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restora- 
tion of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in 
property cases where rights of third parties shall have 
intervened, and upon the condition that every such person 
shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep 
and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall 



1861-1865 283 

be registered for permanent preservation, and shall be of 
the tenor and effect following, to wit : 

I, , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, 

that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend 
the Constitution of the United States, and the union of the 
States thereunder; and that I will, in like maner, abide by 
and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during 
the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and 
so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or 
by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will, in like 
manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of 
the President made during the existing rebellion having 
reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or 
declared void by decision of the Supreme Court. So help 
me God. 

The persons exempted from the benefits of the foregoing 
provisions are all who are, or shall have been, civil or 
diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called Confederate 
Government; all who have left judicial stations under the 
United States to aid the rebellion; all who are or shall 
have been military or naval officers of said so-called Con- 
federate Government above the rank of colonel in the 
army or of lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in 
the United States Congress to aid the rebellion; all who 
resigned commissions in the army or navy of the United 
States and afterward aided the rebellion ; and all who have 
engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white 
persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as 
prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found 
in the United States service as soldiers, seamen, or in 
any other capacity. 



284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known 
that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, 
Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina, a number 
of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes 
cast in such State at the presidential election of the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each 
having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since 
violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law 
of the State existing immediately before the so-called act 
of secession, and excluding all others, shall reestablish a 
State government which shall be republican, and in no 
wise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as 
the true government of the State, and the State shall re- 
ceive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provi- 
sion which declares that "The United States shall guar- 
anty to every State in this Union a republican form 
of government, and shall protect each of them against 
invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or the 
executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), 
against domestic violence." 

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, 
that any provision which may be adopted by such State 
government in relation to the freed people of such State, 
which shall recognize and declare their permanent free- 
dom, provide for their education, and which may yet be 
consistent as a temporary arrangement with their pres- 
ent condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, 
will not be objected to by the national executive. 

And it is suggested as not improper that, in construct- 
ing a loyal State government in any State, the name of 



1861-1865 285 

the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, 
and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be 
maintained, subject only to the modifications made neces- 
sary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such 
others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which 
may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State 
government. 

To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say 
that this proclamation, so far as it relates to State gov- 
ernments, has no reference to States wherein loyal State 
governments have all the while been maintained. 

And, for the same reason, it may be proper to further 
say, that whether members sent to Congress from any 
State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests 
exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any 
extent with the executive. And still further, that this 
proclamation is intended to present the people of the 
States wherein the national authority has been suspended, 
and loyal State governments have been subverted, a mode 
in and by which the national authority and loyal State 
governments may be reestablished within said States, or 
in any of them; and while the mode presented is the 
best the executive can suggest, with his present impres- 
sions, it must not be understood that no other possible 
mode would be acceptable. 

Given under my hand, etc. 

Review of the War (December 8, 1863) 



Incidents occurring in the progress of our civil war 
have forced upon my attention the uncertain state of 



286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

international questions touching the rights of foreigners 
in this country and of United States citizens abroad. In 
regard to some governments these rights are at least 
partially defined by treaties. In no instance, however, 
is it expressly stipulated that in the event of civil war a 
foreigner residing in this country within the lines of 
the insurgents is to be exempted from the rule which 
classes him as a belligerent, in whose behalf the govern- 
ment of his country cannot expect any privileges or im- 
munities distinct from that character. I regret to say, 
however, that such claims have been put forward, and in 
some instances in behalf of foreigners who have lived 
in the United States the greater part of their lives. 

There is reason to believe that many persons born in 
foreign countries who have declared their intention to 
become citizens, or who have been fully naturalized have 
evaded the military duty required of them by denying the 
fact and thereby throwing upon the Government the bur- 
den of proof. It has been found difficult or impracticable 
to obtain this proof, from the want of guides to the proper 
sources of information. These might be supplied by 
requiring clerks of courts where declarations of inten- 
tion may be made or naturalizations effected to send peri- 
odically lists of the names of the persons naturalized or 
declaring their intention to become citizens to the Secre- 
tary of the Interior, in whose Department those names 
might be arranged and printed for general information. 

There is also reason to believe that foreigners frequently 
become citizens of the United States for the sole purpose 
of evading duties imposed by the laws of their native 
countries, to which on becoming naturalized here they 



1861-1865 287 

at once repair, and though never returning to the United 
States they still claim the interposition of this govern- 
ment as citizens. Many altercations and great prejudices 
have heretofore arisen out of this abuse. It is therefore 
submitted to your serious consideration. It might be 
advisable to fix a limit beyond which no citizen of the 
United States residing abroad may claim the interposi- 
tion of his government. 

The right of suffrage has often been assumed and exer- 
cised by aliens under pretenses of naturalization, which 
they have disavowed when drafted into the military ser- 
vice. I submit the expediency of such an amendment 
of the law as will make the fact of voting an estoppel 
against any plea of exemption from military service or 
other civil obligation on the ground of alienage. . . . 

It has long been a cherished opinion of some of our 
wisest statesmen that the people of the United States 
had a higher and more enduring interest in the early 
settlement and substantial cultivation of the public lands 
than in the amount of direct revenue to be derived from 
the sale of them. This opinion has had a controlling in- 
fluence in shaping legislation upon the subject of our 
national domain. I may cite as evidence of this the lib- 
eral measures adopted in reference to actual settlers; the 
grant to the States^ of the overflowed lands within their 
limits, in order to their being reclaimed and rendered fit 
for cultivation; the grants to railway companies of alter- 
nate sections of land upon the contemplated lines of their 
roads, which when completed will so largely multiply the 
facilities for reaching our distant possessions. This pol- 
icy has received its most signal and beneficent illustra- 



288 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

tion in the recent enactment granting homesteads to 
actual settlers. Since the 1st day of January last the 
before-mentioned quantity of 1,456,514 acres of land have 
been taken up under its provisions. This fact and the 
amount of sales furnish gratifying evidence of increasing 
settlement upon the public lands, notwithstanding the 
great struggle in which the energies of the nation have 
been engaged, and which has required so large a with- 
drawal of our citizens from their accustomed pursuits. I 
cordially concur in the recommendation of the Secretary 
of the Interior suggesting a modification of the act in 
favor of those engaged in the military and naval service 
of the United States. I doubt not that Congress will 
cheerfully adopt such measures as will, without essentially 
changing the general features of the system, secure to 
the greatest practicable extent its benefits to those who 
have left their homes in the defense of the country in this 
arduous crisis. . . . 

When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had 
already lasted nearly twenty months, and there had been 
many conflicts on both land and sea, with varying results ; 
the rebellion had been pressed back into reduced limits; 
yet the tone of public feeling and opinion, at home and 
abroad, was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popu- 
lar elections then just past indicated uneasiness among 
ourselves, while, amid much that was cold and menacing, 
the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in 
accents of pity that we are too blind to surrender a hope- 
less cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a 
few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign 
shores, and we were threatened with such additions from 



1861-1865 289 

the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea 
and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from 
European governments anything hopeful upon this sub- 
ject. The preliminary emancipation proclamation, issued 
in September, was running its assigned period to the 
beginning of the new year. A month later the final 
proclamation came, including the announcement that 
colored men of suitable condition would be received into 
the war service. The policy of emancipation and of em- 
ploying black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, 
about which hope and fear and doubt contended in 
uncertain conflict. According to our political system, as 
a matter of civil administration, the General Govern- 
ment had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any 
State, and for a long time it had been hoped that the 
rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as 
a military measure. It was all the while deemed possible 
that the necessity for it might come, and that if it should 
the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It came, 
and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and 
doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are 
permitted to take another review. The rebel borders are 
pressed still farther back, and by the complete opening 
of the Mississippi the country dominated by the rebellion 
is divided into distinct parts, with no practical com- 
munication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have 
been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and in- 
fluential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates 
of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare 
openly for emancipation in their respective States. Of 
those States not included in the emancipation proclama- 



290 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

tion, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years 
ag-o would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of 
slavery into new Territories, dispute now only as to the 
best mode of removing it within their own limits. 

Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the re- 
bellion full 100,000 are now in the United States military 
service, about one-half of which number actually bear 
arms in the ranks, thus giving the double advantage of 
taking so much labor from the insurgent cause and sup- 
plying the places which otherwise must be filled with so 
many white men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say 
they are not as good soldiers as any. No servile insur- 
rection or tendency to violence or cruelty has marked the 
measures of emancipation and arming the blacks. These 
measures have been much discussed in foreign countries, 
and, contemporary with such discussion, the tone of pub- 
lic sentiment there is much improved. At home the same 
measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticised, 
and denounced, and the annual elections following are 
highly encouraging to those whose official duty it is to 
bear the country through this great trial. Thus we have 
the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide 
the friends of the Union is past. 

Looking now to the present and future, and with refer- 
ence to a resumption of the national authority within the 
States wherein that authority has been suspended, I have 
thought fit to issue a proclamation, a copy of which is 
herewith transmitted. On examination of this proclama- 
tion it will appear, as is believed, that nothing will be 
attempted beyond what is amply justified by the Constitu- 
tion. True, the form of an oath is given, but no man 



1861-1865 291 

is coerced to take it. The man is promised a pardon 
only in case he voluntarily takes the oath. The Consti- 
tution authorizes the Executive to grant or withhold the 
pardon at his own absolute discretion, and this includes 
the power to grant on terms, as is fully established by 
judicial and other authorities. 

It is also proffered that if in any of the States named 
a State government shall be in the mode prescribed set up, 
such government shall be recognized and guaranteed by 
the United States, and that under it the State shall, on 
the constitutional conditions, be protected against inva- 
sion and domestic violence. The constitutional obligation 
of the United States to guarantee to every State in the 
Union a republican form of government and to protect 
the State in the cases stated is explicit and full. But 
why tender the benefits of this provision only to a State 
government set up in this particular way? This section 
of the Constitution contemplates a case wherein the ele- 
ment within a State favorable to republican government 
in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile 
element external to or even within the State, and such are 
precisely the cases with which we are now dealing. 

An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State 
government, constructed in whole or in preponderating 
part from the very element against whose hostility and 
violence it is to be protected, is simply absurd. There 
must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements, 
so as to build only from the sound; and that test is a 
sufficiently liberal one which accepts as sound whoever 
will make a sworn recantation of his former unsound- 
ness. 



292 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

But if it be proper to require as a test of admission to 
the political body an oath of allegiance to the Consti- 
tution of the United States and to the Union under it, 
why also to the laws and proclamations in regard to 
slavery? Those laws and proclamations were enacted 
and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the suppres- 
sion of the rebellion. To give them their fullest effect 
there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. In my 
judgment, they have aided and will further aid the cause 
for which they were intended. To now abandon them 
would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would 
also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may 
add at this point that while I remain in my present posi- 
tion I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipa- 
tion proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any per- 
son who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by 
any of the acts of Congress. For these and other reasons 
it is thought best that support of these measures shall be 
included in the oath, and it is believed the Executive may 
lawfully claim it in return for pardon and restoration of 
forfeited rights, which he has clear constitutional power 
to withhold altogether or grant upon the terms which 
he shall deem wisest for the public interest. It should 
be observed also that this part of the oath is subject 
to the modifying and abrogating power of legislation 
and supreme judicial decision. . . . 

In the midst of other cares, however important, we must 
not lose sight of the fact that the war power is still our 
main reliance. To that power alone can we look yet for a 
time to give confidence to the people in the contested 



1861-1865 293 

regions that the insurgent power will not again overrun 
them. Until that confidence shall be established little 
can be done anywhere for what is called reconstruction. 
Hence our chiefest care must still be directed to the Army 
and Navy, who have thus far borne their harder part so 
nobly and well; and it may be esteemed fortunate that in 
giving the greatest efficiency to these indispensable arms 
we do also honorably recognize the gallant men, from 
commander to sentinel, who compose them, and to whom 
more than to others the world must stand indebted for 
the home of freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, 
and perpetuated. 

1864 

Trying to Evade the Butchering Business (Jan. 7, 1864) 
To Hon. S. P. Chase : 

One Andrews is to be shot for desertion at Covington, 
to-morrow. The proceedings have never been submitted 
to the President. Is this right? 

Governor Hoadley. 
llndorsement.'] 
The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears 
by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this 
I had ordered his punishment commuted to imprisonment 
for during the war at hard labor, and had so telegraphed. 
I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because / am 
trying to evade the butchering business lately. 

A. Lincoln. 



294 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

A Positive Direction (March 1, 1864) 

Hon. Secretary of War. 

My dear Sir: — A poor widow, by the name of Baird, 
lias a son in the army, that for some offense has been 
sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most 
with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of 
withholding pay — it falls so very hard upon poor families. 
After he had been serving in this way for several months, 
at the tearful appeal of the poor mother, I made a direc- 
tion that he he allowed to enlist for a new term, on the 
same conditions as others. She now comes, and says she 
cannot get it acted upon. Please do it. 
Yours truly, 

Lincoln and Grant (March 9-April 30, 1864) 

General Grant: 

The nation's appreciation of what you have done, and 
its reliance upon you for what remains to do, in the 
existing great struggle, are now presented with this com- 
mission, constituting you lieutenant-general in the Army 
of the United States. 

With this high honor devolves upon you also a corre- 
sponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, 
so, under God, it will sustain you, I scarcely need add, 
that with what I here speak for the nation, goes my own 
hearty personal concurrence. 




PORTRAIT BY BRADY, 1864 
(From the War Department Collection) 



1861-1865 295 

(April SO) 

Lieutenant-General Grant : 

Not expecting to see you before the spring campaign 
opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction 
with what you have done up to this time, so far as I 
understand it. 

The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek 
to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased 
with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints or con- 
straints upon you. While I am very anxious that any 
greater disaster or capture of our men in great number 
shall be avoided, I know that these points are less likely 
to escape your attention than they would be mine. If 
there be anything wanting which is within my power to 
give, do not fail to let me know it. 

And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God 
sustain you. 

Capital and Labor (March 21, 1864) 

REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE WORKINGMEN's ASSOCIA- 
tion of new york, march 21, 1864 

Gentlemen of the Committee: 

The honorary membership in your association, as gen- 
erously tendered, is gratefully accepted. 

You comprehend, as your address shows, that the exist- 
ing rebellion means more and tends to do more than the 
perpetuation of African slavery — that it is, in fact, a 



296 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

war upon the rights of all working people. Partly to 
show that this view has not escaped my attention, and 
partly that I cannot better express myself, I read a passage 
from the message to Congress in December, 1861 : 

*'It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, 
if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular 
government, the rights of the people. Conclusive evi- 
dence of this is found in the most grave and maturely 
considered public documents, as well as in the general 
tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the 
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the 
denial to the people of all right to participate in the 
selection of public officers, except the legislature, boldly 
advocated, with labored argument to prove that large 
control of the people in government is the source of all 
political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at 
as a possible refuge from the power of the people. 

*^In my present position I could scarcely be justified 
were I to omit raising a warning voice against this ap- 
proach of returning despotism. 

"It is not needed, nor fitting here, that a general argu- 
ment should be made in favor of popular institutions ; but 
there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed 
as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is 
the effort to place capital on an equal footing, if not above 
labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that 
labor is available only in connection with capital; that 
nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, some- 
how by the use of it induces him to labor. This as- 
sumed, it is next considered whether it is best that 
capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work 



1861-1865 297 

by their own consent, or hui/ them, and drive them to it 
without their consent. Having proceeded so far it is 
naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired la- 
borers, or what we call slaves. And, further it is as- 
sumed that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fixed in 
that condition for life. Now there is no such relation 
between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any 
such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the con- 
dition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are 
false, and all inferences from them are groundless. 

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capi- 
tal is only the fruit of labor, and could never have ex- 
isted if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior 
of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. 
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection 
as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and 
probably always will be, a relation between capital and 
labor, producing mutual benefits. The error is in assum- 
ing that the whole labor of a community exists within 
that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid 
labor themselves, and, with their capital, hire or buy 
another few to labor for them. A large majority belong 
to neither class — neither work for others, nor have others 
working for them. In most of the Southern States, a 
majority of the whole people, of all colors, are neither 
hirers nor hired. Men with their families — wives, sons 
and daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, 
in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole 
product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on 
the one hand, nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. 
It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons 



298 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor 
with their own hands, and also buy or hire others to labor 
for them, but this is only a mixed and not a distinct 
class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence 
of this mixed class. 

^'Again, as has already been said, there is not, of neces- 
sity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed 
to that condition for life. Many independent men every- 
where in these States, a few years back in their lives, were 
hired laborers. The prudent penniless beginner in the 
world labors for wages a while, saves a surplus with which 
to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own 
account another while, and at length hires another new 
beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and 
prosperous system which opens the way to all — gives hope 
to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improve- 
ment of condition to all. No men living are more worthy 
to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty — none 
less inclined to touch or take aught which they have not 
honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a 
political power they already possess, and which, if sur- 
rendered, will surely be used to close the door of advance- 
ment against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and 
burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost." 

The views then expressed remain unchanged, nor have 
I much to add. None are so deeply interested to resist 
the present rebellion as the working people. Let them 
beware of prejudices, working division and hostility among 
themselves. The most notable feature of a disturbance 
in your city last summer was the hanging of some work- 
ing people by other working people. It should never be 



1861-1865 299 

so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of 
the family relation, should be one uniting all working 
people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor 
should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners 
of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is 
desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some 
should be rich shows that others may become rich, and, 
hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. 
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of 
another, but let him labor diligently and build one for 
himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be 
safe from violence when built. 



The Case Against Slavery (April 4, 1864) 
A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Kentucky: 

My dear Sir: — You ask me to put in writing the sub- 
stance of what I verbally said the other day, in your 
presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It 
was about as follows : 

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so 
think and feel, and yet I have never understood that the 
Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to 
act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in 
the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability 
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States. I could not take the office without taking 
the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath 
to get power, and break the oath in using the power. 



300 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration 
this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my pri- 
mary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. 
I had publicly declared this many times, and in many 
ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official 
act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feel- 
ing on slavery. I did understand, however, that my 
oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability, 
imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indis- 
pensable means, that government, that nation, of which 
that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible 
to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By 
general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a 
limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never 
wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, other- 
wise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becom- 
ing indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, 
through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, 
I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not 
feel that to the best of my ability I had even tried to pre- 
serve the Constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor 
matter, I should permit the wreck of government, coun- 
try, and Constitution, altogether. When, early in the 
war. General Fremont attempted military emancipation, 
I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispens- 
able necessity. When, a little later. General Cameron, 
then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the 
blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an in- 
dispensable necessity. When, still later. General Hunter 
attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, be- 
cause I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had 



1861-1865 301 

come. When, in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made 
earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to 
favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispens- 
able necessity for military emancipation and arming the 
blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They 
declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, 
driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, 
and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand 
upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing 
it, I hoped for greater gain than loss, but of this I was 
not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now 
shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our 
home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, 
no loss by it anyhow, or anywhere. On the contrary, it 
shows a gain of quite one hundred and thirty thousand 
soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, 
about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have 
the men; and we could not have had them without the 
measure. 

"And now let any Union man who complains of the 
measure test himself by writing down in one line that he 
is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in 
the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty 
thousand men from the Union side, and placing them 
where they would be but for the measure he condemns. 
If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because 
he cannot face the truth." 

I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. 
In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own 
sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but con- 
fess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at 



302 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition 
is not what either party, or any man, devised or expected. 
God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems 
plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, 
and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of 
the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that 
wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to 
attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



What Is Liberty (April 18, 1864) 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — Calling to mind that we are 
in Baltimore, we cannot fail to note that the world moves. 
Looking upon these many people assembled here to serve, 
as they best may, the soldiers of the Union, it occurs at 
once that three years ago the same soldiers could not so 
much as pass through Baltimore. The change from then 
till now is both great and gratifying. Blessings on the 
brave men who have wrought the change, and the fair 
women who strive to reward them for it! 

But Baltimore suggests more than could happen within 
Baltimore. The change within Baltimore is part only 
of a far wider change. When the war began, three years 
ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would 
last till now. Each looked for the end, in some way, long 
ere to-day. Neither did any anticipate that domestic 
slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we 
are; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much 



1861-1865 303 

affected — how much needs not now to be recounted. So 
true is it that man proposes and God disposes. 

But we can see the past, though we may not claim to 
have directed it; and seeing it, in this case, we feel more 
hopeful and confident for the future. 

The world has never had a good definition of the word 
liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in 
want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using 
the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With 
some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as 
he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; 
while with others the same word may mean for some men 
to do as they please with other men, and the product of 
other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but 
incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. 
And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective 
parties, called by two different and incompatible names — 
liberty and tyranny. 

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, 
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, 
while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the 
destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black 
one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon 
a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same 
difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even 
in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence 
we behold the process by which thousands are daily pass- 
ing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the 
advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruc- 
tion of all liberty. Kecently, as it seems, the people of 
Maryland have been doing something to define liberty, and 



304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolfs 
dictionary has been repudiated. 

It is not very becoming for one in my position to make 
epeeches at length; but there is another subject upon 
which I feel that I ought to say a word. A painful rumor, 
true, I fear, has reached us, of the massacre, by the rebel 
forces at Fort Pillow, in the west end of Tennessee, on 
the Mississippi River, of some three hundred colored 
soldiers and white officers, who had just been overpowered 
by their assailants. There seems to be some anxiety in 
the public mind whether the Government is doing its duty 
to the colored soldier, and to the service, at this point. 
At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use 
of colored troops was not contemplated; and how the 
change of purpose was wrought I will not now take time 
to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved 
to turn that element of strength to account; and I am 
responsible for it to the American people, to the Christian 
world, to history, and in my final account to God. Hav- 
ing determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no 
way but to give him all the protection given to any other 
soldier. The difficulty is not in stating the principle, but 
in practically applying it. It is a mistake to suppose the 
Government is indifferent to this matter, or is not doing 
the best it can in regard to it. We do not to-day know 
that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding col- 
ored soldiers, has been massacred by the rebels when made 
a prisoner. We fear it, — believe it, I may say, — ^but we 
do not know it. To take the life of one of their prisoners 
on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is short 
of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too 



1861-1865 305 

serious, too cruel, a mistake. We are having the Fort 
Pillow affair thoroughly investigated; and such investiga- 
tion will probably show conclusively how the truth is. If 
after all that has been said it shall turn out that there has 
been no massacre at Fort Pillow, it will be almost safe 
to say there has been none, and will be none, elsewhere. 
If there has been the massacre of three hundred there, or 
even the tenth part of three hundred, it will be conclu- 
sively proved; and being so proved, the retribution shall 
as surely come. It will be matter of grave consideration 
in what exact course to apply the retribution; but in the 
supposed case it must come. 

Honor to the Churches (May 14, 1864) 

To Methodists 

Gentlemen: — In response to your address, allow me to 
attest the accuracy of its historical statements, indorse 
the sentiments it expresses, and thank you in the nation's 
name for the sure promise it gives. Nobly sustained, as 
the Government has been, by all the churches, I would 
utter nothing which might in the least appear invidious 
against any. Yet without this it may fairly be said, that 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than 
the best, is by its greatest numbers the most important 
of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church 
sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hos- 
pitals, and more prayers to Heaven than any other. God 
bless the Methodist Church. Bless all the churches; and 



306 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

blessed be God, who in this our great trial giveth us the 
churches. 

To Baptists 

In the present very responsible position in which I am 
engaged, I have had great cause of gratitude for the sup- 
port so unanimously given by all Christian denominations 
of the country. I have had occasion so frequently to 
respond to something like this assemblage, that I have said 
all I had to say. This particular body is, in all respects, 
as respectable as any that have been presented to me. The 
resolutions I have merely heard read, and I therefore beg 
to be allowed an opportunity to make a short response in 
writing. 

Sticking to the Wax (June 16, 1864) 

TO THE SANITARY FAIR IN PHILADELPHU 

I suppose that this toast is intended to open the way 
for me to say something. War at the best is terrible, and 
this of ours in its magnitude and duration is one of 
the most terrible the world has ever known. It has de- 
ranged business totally in many places, and perhaps in 
all. It has destroyed property, destroyed life, and ruined 
homes. It has produced a national debt and a degree of 
taxation unprecedented in the history of this country. 
It has caused mourning among us until the heavens may 
almost be said to be hung in black. And yet it continues. 
It has had accompaniments not before known in the his- 
tory of the world. I mean the Sanitary and Christian 
Commissions, with their labors for the relief of the sol- 



1861-1865 307 

diers, and the Volunteer Refreshment Saloons, under- 
stood better by those who hear me than by myself, and 
these fairs, first begun at Chicago and next held in Boston, 
Cincinnati, and other cities. The motive and object 
that lie at the bottom of them are worthy of the most that 
we can do for the soldier who goes to fight the battles of 
his country. From the fair and tender hand of women is 
much, very much, done for the soldier, continually remind- 
ing him of the care and thought for him at home. The 
knowledge that he is not forgotten is grateful to his heart. 
Another view of these institutions is worthy of thought. 
They are voluntary contributions, giving proof that the 
national resources are not at all exhausted, and that the 
national patriotism will sustain us through all. It is a 
pertinent question. When is this war to end? I do not 
wish to name the day when it will end, lest the end 
should not come at the given time. We accepted this 
war, and did not begin it. We accepted it for an object, 
and when that object is accomplished the war will end, 
and. I hope to God that it will never end until that object 
is accomplished. We are going through with our task, so 
far as I am concerned, if it takes us three years longer. 
I have not been in the habit of making predictions, but 
I am almost tempted now to hazard one. I will. It is, 
that Grant is this evening in a position, with Meade and 
Hancock, of Pennsylvania, whence he can never be dis- 
lodged by the enemy until Richmond is taken. If I shall 
discover that General Grant may be greatly facilitated in 
the capture of Richmond by rapidly pouring to him a 
large number of armed men at the briefest notice, will 



308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

you go? Will you march on with him? (Cries of ^'Yes, 
yes.") Then I shall call upon you when it is necessary. 



Abiding the Issue (August 15, 1864) 

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN T. MILLS. 

"Mr. President," said Governor Randall, "why can't you 
seek seclusion, and play hermit for a fortnight? It would 
reinvigorate you." 

"Ah," said the President, "two or three weeks would do 
me no good. I cannot fly from my thoughts — my solici- 
tude for this great country follows me wherever I go. I 
do not think it is personal vanity or ambition, though I 
am not free from these infirmities, but I cannot but feel 
that the weal or woe of this great nation will be decided 
in November. There is no program offered by any wing 
of the Democratic party but that must result in the perma- 
nent destruction of the Union." 

"But, Mr. President, General McClellan is in favor of 
crushing out this rebellion by force. He will be the 
Chicago candidate." 

"Sir, the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove 
to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed by 
Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men 
of the North to do it. There are now in the service of 
the United States nearly one hundred and fifty thousand 
able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, de- 
fending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic 
strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and 
that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to 
slavery. The black men who now assist Union prisoners 



1861-1865 309 

to escape are to be converted into our enemies, in the 
vain hope of gaining the good-will of their masters. We 
shall have to fight two nations instead of one. 

"You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to 
them ultimate success; and the experience of the pres- 
ent war proves their success is inevitable if you fling the 
compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side 
of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military 
advantages as insure success, and then depend on coax- 
ing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the 
Union? Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black 
men, take one hundred and fifty thousand men from our 
side and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against 
us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in 
three weeks. 

"We have to hold territory in inclement and sickly 
places; where are the Democrats to do this? It was a 
free fight, and the field was open to the war Democrats to 
put down this rebellion by fighting against both master 
and slave, long before the present policy was inaugurated, 

"There have been men base enough to propose to me 
to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson 
and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they 
fought. Should I do so, I should deserve to be damned 
in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my 
faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now 
carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. 
So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the 
sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power 
can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emanci- 



310 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

pation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken 
the moral and physical forces of the rebellion. 

^'Freedom has given us one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men, raised on Southern soil. It will give us more 
yet. Just so much it has subtracted from the enemy, 
and, instead of alienating the South, there are now evi- 
dences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our 
men and the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. Let my 
enemies prove to the country that the destruction of 
slavery is not necessary to a restoration of the Union. 
I will abide the issue." 

What is Involved in This Contest (August 18-22, 1864) 

To the leitth Ohio Regiment {Aug. 18, 186Jf.) 

SOLDIEKS : — You are about to return to your homes 
and your friends, after having, as I learn, performed in 
camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great 
contest. I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who 
have come forward at the call of their country. I wish it 
might be more generally and universally understood what 
the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, 
a free government, where every man has a right to be 
equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this 
form of government and every form of human right is 
endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more in- 
volved in this contest than is realized by every one. 
There is involved in this struggle the question whether 
your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges 
we have enjoyed. I say this, in order to impress upon 



1861-1865 311 

you, if you are not already so impressed, that no small 
matter should divert us from our great purpose. 

There may be some inequalities in the practical applica- 
tion of OUT system. It is fair that each man shall pay 
taxes in exact proportion to the value of his property; 
but if we should wait, before collecting a tax, to adjust 
the taxes upon each man in exact proportion with every 
other man, we should never collect any tax at all. There 
may be mistakes made sometimes; and things may be 
done wrong, while the officers of the Government do all 
they can to prevent mistakes. But I beg of you, as citi- 
zens of this great Republic, not to let your minds be car- 
ried off from the great work we have before us. This 
struggle is too large for you to be diverted from it by 
any small matter. When you return to your homes, rise 
up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free 
government, and we will carry out the great work we have 
commenced. I return to you my sincere thanks, soldiers, 
for the honor you have done me this afternoon. 

To the 166th Ohio (^August 22) 

SOLDIERS : — I suppose you are going home to see 
your families and friends. For the services you have done 
in this great struggle in which we are engaged, I present 
you sincere thanks for myself and the country. 

I almost always feel inclined, when I say anything to 
soldiers, to impress upon them, in a few brief remarks, 
the importance of success in this contest. It is not merely 
for the day, but for all time to come, that we should per- 
petuate for our children's children that great and free 



312 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

government which we have enjoyed all our lives. I beg 
you to remember this, not merely for my sake, but for 
yours. I happen, temporarily, to occupy this big White 
House. I am a living witness that any one of your 
children may look to come here as my father's child has. 
It is in order that each one of you may have, through 
this free government which we have enjoyed, an open 
field, and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and 
intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in 
the race of life with all its desirable human aspirations 
— it is for this that the struggle should be maintained, 
that we may not lose our birthrights — not only for one, 
but for two or three years, if necessary. The nation is 
worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel. 

The Purposes of the Almighty (September 4, 1864) 

Eliza P. Gurney. 

My esteemed Friend: — ^I have not forgotten — ^probably 
never shall forget — the very impressive occasion when 
yourself and friends visited me on a Sabbath forenoon 
two years ago — nor has your kind letter, written nearly 
a year later, even been forgotten. In all, it has been your 
purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much 
indebted to the good Christian people of the country for 
their constant prayer and consolations; and to no one of 
them more than to yourself. The purposes of the Al- 
mighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring 
mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. 
We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war 
long before this ; but God knows best, and has ruled other- 



1861-1865 313 

wise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom, and our 
own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly 
in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working 
still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He 
intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, 
which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. 
Your people — the Friends — have had, and are having, 
a very great trial. On principle and faith opposed to 
both war and oppression, they can only practically op- 
pose oppression by war. For those appealing to me on 
conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best 
I could and can, in my own conscience, under my oath 
to the law. That you believe this I doubt not, and be- 
lieving it, I shall still receive, for our country and my- 
self, your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven. 

Your sincere friend, 

The Constitution the XJltimate Law (October 19, 1864) 

Friends and Fellow-Citizens : — I am notified that this 
is a compliment paid me by the loyal Marylanders resi- 
dent in this District. I infer that the adoption of the 
new constitution for the State furnishes the occasion, 
and that in your view the extirpation of slavery consti- 
tutes the chief merit of the new constitution. Most heart- 
ily do I congratulate you, and Maryland, and the nation, 
and the world, upon this event. I regret that it did not 
occur two years sooner, which, I am sure, would have 
saved the nation more money than would have met all 
the private loss incident to the measure; but it has come 
at last, and I sincerely hope its friends may fully realize 



314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

all their anticipations of good from it, and that its op- 
ponents may by its effects be agreeably and profitably 
disappointed. 

A word "Upon another subject. Something said by the 
Secretary of State in his recent speech at Auburn has 
been construed by some into a threat, that if I shall be 
beaten at the election, I will, between then and the end 
of my constitutional term, do what I may be able to ruin 
the Government. 

Others regard the fact that the Chicago Convention 
adjourned, not sine die, but to meet again, if called to do 
so by a particular individual, as the intimation of a pur- 
pose that if their nominee shall be elected he will at once 
seize control of the Government. I hope the good peo- 
ple will permit themselves to suffer no uneasiness on either 
point. I am struggling to maintain the Government, not 
to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent 
others from overthrowing it. I therefore say, that if I 
live, I shall remain President until the 4th of next 
March, and that whoever shall be constitutionally elected, 
in November, shall be duly installed as President on the 
4th of March, and in the interval I shall do my utmost 
that whoever is to hold the helm for the next voyage shall 
start with the best possible chance of saving the ship. 
This is due to the people, both on principle and under 
the Constitution. Their will, constitutionally expressed, 
is the ultimate law for all. If they should deliberately 
resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their 
country and their liberties, I know not the power or the 
right to resist them. It is their own business, and they 
must do as they please with their own. I believe, how- 



1861-1865 315 

ever, they are still resolved to preserve their country and 
their liberties; and in this, in office or out of it, I am re- 
solved to stand by them. I may add, that in this purpose 
to save the country and its liberties, no classes of peo- 
ple seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field 
and the sailors afloat. Do they not have the hardest of 
it? Who should quail while they do not? God bless the; 
soldiers and seamen, v^ith all their brave commanders. 

Ko Free Government Without Elections (November 9, 

1864) 

Friends and Fellow-Citizens : — ^Even before I had been 
informed by you that this compliment was paid me by 
loyal citizens of Pennsylvania, friendly to me, I had in- 
ferred that you were of that portion of my countrymen 
who think that the best interests of the nation are to be 
subserved by the support of the present administration. 
I do not pretend to say that you, who think so, embrace 
all the patriotism and loyalty of the country, but I do be- 
lieve, and I trust without personal interest, that the wel- 
fare of the country does require that such support and 
indorsement should be given. 

I earnestly believe that the consequences of this day's 
work, if it be as you assume, and as now seems prob- 
able, will be to the lasting advantage, if not to the very 
salvation, of the country. I cannot at this hour say what 
has been the result of the election. But, whatever it may 
be, I have no desire to modify this opinion : that all who 
have labored to-day in behalf of the Union have wrought 



316 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

for the best interests of the country and the world; not 
only for the present, but for all future ages. 

I am thankful to God for this approval of the people; 
but, while deeply grateful for this mark of their con- 
fidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free 
from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn 
the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure 
to me to triumph over any one, but I give thanks to the 
Almighty for this evidence of the people's resolution to 
stand by free government and the rights of humanity. 

Victory Not Triumph (November 17, 1864) 

REPLY TO MARYLAND UNION COMMITTEE 

The President, in reply, said that he had to confess he 
had been duly notified of the intention to make this 
friendly call some days ago, and in this he had had a fair 
opportunity afforded to be ready with a set speech; but 
he had not prepared one, being too busy for that pur- 
pose. He would say, however, that he was gratified with 
the result of the presidential election. He had kept as 
near as he could to the exercise of his best judgment for 
the interest of the whole country, and to have the seal 
of approbation stamped on the course he had pursued was 
exceedingly grateful to his feelings. He thought he 
could say, in as large a sense as any other man, that his 
pleasure consisted in belief that the policy he had pursued 
was the best, if not the only one for the safety of the 
country. 

He had said before, and now repeated, that he indulged 



1861-1865 317 

in no feeling of triumph over any man who thought or 
acted differently from himself. He had no such feeling 
toward any living man. When he thought of Maryland, 
in particular, he was of the opinion that she had more 
than double her share in what had occurred in the recent 
elections. The adoption of a free-State constitution was 
a greater thing than the part taken by the people of the 
State in the presidential election. He would any day 
have stipulated to lose Maryland in the presidential elec- 
tion to save it by the adoption of a free-State constitu- 
tion, because the presidential election comes every four 
years, while that is a thing which, being done, cannot be 
undone. He therefore thought that in that they had a 
victory for the right worth a great deal more than their 
part in the presidential election, though of the latter he 
thought highly. He had once before said, but would say 
again, that those who have differed with us and opposed 
us will see that the result of the presidential election is 
better for their own good than if they had been success- 
ful. 

Thanking the committee for their compliment, he 
brought his brief speech to a close. 

The Anti-Slavery Amendment to the Constitution (De- 
cember 6, 1864) 

... At the last session of Congress a proposed amend- 
ment of the Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the 
United States passed the Senate, but failed for lack of 
the requisite two-thirds vote in the House of Kepresenta- 
tives. Although the present is the same Congress and 



318 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

nearly the same members, and without questioning the 
wisdom or patriotism of those who stood in opposition, I 
venture to recommend the reconsideration and passage of 
the measure at the present session. Of course the ab- 
stract question is not changed; but an intervening elec- 
tion shows almost certainly that the next Congress will 
pass the measure if this does not. Hence there is only a 
question of time as to when the proposed amendment will 
go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go 
at all events, may we not agree that the sooner the bet- 
ter? It is not claimed that the election has imposed a 
duty on members to change their views or their votes any 
further than, as an additional element to be considered, 
their judgment may be affected by it. It is the voice of 
the people now for the first time heard upon the ques- 
tion. In a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of 
action among those seeking a common end is very desir- 
able — almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such 
unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be 
paid to the will of the majority simply because it is the 
will of the majority. In this case the common end is 
the maintenance of the Union, and among the means to 
secure that end such will, through the election, is most 
clearly declared in favor of such Constitutional amend- 
ment. 

The most reliable indication of public purpose in this 
country is derived through our popular elections. Judg- 
ing by the recent canvass and its result, the purpose of 
the people within the loyal States to maintain the in- 
tegrity of the Union was never more firm nor more nearly 
unanimous than now. The extraordinary calmness and 



1861-1865 319 

good order with which the millions of voters met and 
mingled at the polls give strong assurance of this. Not 
only all those who supported the Union ticket, so called, 
but a great majority of the opposing party also may be 
fairly claimed to entertain and to be actuated by the 
same purpose. It is an unanswerable argument to this 
effect that no candidate for any office whatever, high or 
low, has ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was 
for giving up the Union. There have been much im- 
pugning of motives and much heated controversy as to 
the proper means and best mode of advancing the Union 
cause, but on the distinct issue of Union or no Union the 
politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that 
there is no diversity among the people. In affording the 
people the fair opportunity of showing one to another 
and to the world this firmness and unanimity of pur- 
pose, the election has been of vast value to the national 
cause. 

The election has exhibited another fact not less valu- 
able to be known — the fact that we do not approach ex- 

' haustion in the most important branch of national re- 
sources, that of living men. While it is melancholy to re- 
flect that the war has filled so many graves and carried 
mourning to so many hearts, it is some relief to know 
that, compared with the surviving, the fallen have been 
so few. While corps and divisions and brigades and 
regiments have formed and fought and dwindled and 

i gone out of existence, a great majority of the men who 
composed them are still living. The same is true of the 
naval service. The election returns prove this. So many 
voters could not else be found. The States regularly 



320 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

holding elections, both now and four years ago, to wit, 
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, 
Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michi- 
gan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, 
New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 
Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, cast 3,982,011 
votes now, against 3,870,222 cast then, showing an ag- 
gregate now of 3,982,011. To this is to be added 33,762 
cast now in the new States of Kansas and Nevada, which 
States did not vote in 1860, thus swelling the aggregate 
to 4,015,773 and the net increase during the three years 
and a half of war to 145,551. A table is appended show- 
ing particulars. To this again should be added the num- 
ber of all soldiers in the field from Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and Cal- 
ifornia, who by the laws of those States could not vote 
away from their homes, and which number cannot be 
less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all. The number in 
organized Territories is triple now what it was four 
years ago, while thousands, white and black, join us as the 
national arms press back the insurgent lines. So much is 
shown, affirmatively and negatively, by the election. It 
IS not material to inquire how the increase has been pro- 
duced or to show that it would have been greater but for 
the war, which is probably true. The important fact re- 
mains demonstrated that we have more men now than we 
had when the war hegan; that we are not exhausted nor 
in process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength 
and may if need be maintain the contest indefinitely. This 
as to men. Material resources are now more complete 
and abundant than ever. 



1861-1865 321 

The national resources, then, are unexhausted, and, 
as we believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose to re- 
establish and maintain the national authority is un- 
changed, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The manner 
of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful 
consideration of all the evidence accessible it seems to me 
that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader 
could result in any good. He would accept nothing short 
of severance of the Union, precisely what we will not and 
can not give. His declarations to this effect are explicit 
and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. 
He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He can- 
not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we cannot volun- 
tarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, 
simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be 
tried by war and decided by victory. If we yield, we 
are beaten ; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. 
Either way it would be the victory and defeat following 
war. What is true, however, of him who heads the in- 
surgent cause is not necessarily true of those who fol- 
low. Although he cannot reaccept the Union, they can. 
Some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion. 
The number of such may increase. They can at any mo- 
ment have peace simply by laying down their arms and 
submitting to the national authority under the Consti- 
tution. After so much the Government could not, if it 
would, maintain war against them. The loyal people 
would not sustain or allow it. If questions should re- 
main, we would adjust them by the peaceful means of 
legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating only 
in Constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain, and 



322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

other possible, questions are and would be ey>nd the 
Executive power to adjust; as, for instance, the admission 
of members into Congress and whatever might require 
the appropriation of money. The Executive power itself 
would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual 
war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, however, 
would still be within Executive control. In what spirit 
and temper this control would be exercised can be fairly 
judged of by the past. 

A year ago general pardon and amnesty, upon speci- 
fied terms, were offered to all except certain designated 
classes, and it was at the same time made known that 
the excepted classes were still within contemplation of 
special clemency. During the year many availed them- 
selves of the general provision, and many more would, 
only that the signs of bad faith in some led to such pre- 
cautionary measures as rendered the practical process less 
easy and certain. During the same time also special par- 
dons have been granted to individuals of the excepted 
classes, and no voluntary application has been denied. 
Thus practically the door has been for a full year open 
to all except such as were not in condition to make free 
choice; that is, such as were in custody or under con- 
straint. It is still so open to all. But the time may 
come, probably will come, when public duty shall de- 
mand that it be closed and that in lieu more rigorous 
measures than heretofore shall be adopted. 

In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to 
the national authority on the part of the insurgents as 
the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the 




THE LAST PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN 

(Taken April 9, 1865, the Sunday before his assassination) 



1861-1865 323 

part of the Government, I retract nothing heretofore 
said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year 
ago, that "while I remain in my present position I shall 
not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proc- 
lamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who 
is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of 
the acts of Congress." If the people should, by whatever 
mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave 
such persons, another, and not I, must be their instru- 
ment to perform it. 

In stating a single condition of peace I mean simply 
to say that the war will cease on the part of the Govern- 
ment whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those 
who began it. 

Origin of the Greenbacks (December 16, [?] 1864) 

My dear Colonel Dick: — I have long determined to 
make public the origin of the greenback and tell the 
world that it is Dick Taylor's creation. You had always 
been friendly to me, and when troublous times fell on 
us, and my shoulders, though broad and willing, were 
weak, and myself surrounded by such circumstances and 
such people that I knew not whom to trust, then I said 
in my extremity: "I will send for Colonel Taylor; he 
will know what to do." I think it was in January, 1862, 
on or about the 16th, that I did so. You came, and I 
said to you: 

"What can we do?" Said you, "Why, issue Treasury 
notes bearing no interest, printed on the best banking 



324 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

paper. Issue enough to pay off the Army expenses and 
declare it legal tender." 

Chase thought it a hazardous thing, but we finally 
accomplished it, and gave the people of this Republic 
the greatest blessing they ever had — their own paper to 
pay their own debts. 

It is due to you, the father of the present greenback, 
that the people should know it, and I take great pleasure 
in making it known. How many times have I laughed 
at you telling me plainly that I was too lazy to be any- 
thing but a lawyer. 



To the Mother of Five Heroes (November 21, 1864) 

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dear Madam: — I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General 
of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel 
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which 
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so 
overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to 
you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of 
the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly 
Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, 
and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved 
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 



1861-1865 325 

Response to Serenades (May 9, November 10, 1864) 

FELLOW-CITIZENS:—! am very much obliged to 
you for the compliment of this call, though I apprehend 
it is owing more to the good news received to-day from 
the Army than to a desire to see me. I am indeed very 
grateful to the brave men who have been struggling 
with the enemy in the field, to their noble commanders 
who have directed them, and especially to our Maker. 
Our commanders are following up their victories reso- 
lutely and successfully. I think, without knowing the 
particulars of the plans of General Grant, that what has 
been accomplished is of more importance than at first 
appears. I believe, I know (and am especially grateful 
to know) that General Grant has not been jostled in his 
purposes, that he has made all his points, and to-day 
he is on his line as he purposed before he moved his 
armies. I will volunteer to say that I am very glad at 
what has happened, but there is a great deal still to be 
done. While we are grateful to all the brave men and 
officers for the events of the past few days, we should, 
above all, be very grateful to Almighty God, who gives 
us victory. 

There is enough yet before us requiring all loyal men 
and patriots to perform their share of the labor and 
follow the example of the modest General at the head of 
our armies, and sink all personal consideration for the 
sake of the country. I commend you to keep yourself 
in the same tranquil mood that is characteristic of that 
brave and loyal man. I have said more than I expected 



326 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

when I came before you. Repeating my thanks for this 
call, I bid you good-by. 



November 10, 186U 

It has long been a grave question whether any govern- 
ment, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can 
be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emer- 
gencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our 
government to a severe test, and a presidential election 
occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added 
not a little to the strain. 

If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of 
their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when 
divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among 
themselves? But the election was a necessity. We can- 
not have free government without elections; and if the 
election could force us to forego or postpone a national 
election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered 
and ruined us. The strife of the election is but human 
nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What 
has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar 
cases. Human nature will not change. In any future 
great national trial, compared with the men of this, we 
will have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as 
bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents 
of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of 
them as wrongs to be revenged. 

But the election, along with its incidental and unde- 
sirable strife, has done good, too. It has demonstrated 



1861-1865 327 

that a people's government can sustain a national elec 
tion in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it 
has not been known to the world that this was a possi- 
bility. It shows, also, how sound and strong we still are. 
It shows that even among the candidates of the same 
party, he who is most devoted to the Union and most 
opposed to treason can receive most of the people's votes. 
It shows, also, to the extent yet known, that we have 
more men now than we had when the war began. Gold 
is good in its place; but living, brave, and patriotic men 
are better than gold. 

But the rebellion continues, and, now that the elec- 
tion is over, may not all have a common interest to re- 
unite in a common effort to save our common country? 
For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid 
placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been, 
here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's- 
bosom. While I am duly sensible to the high compliment 
of a re-election, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty 
God, for having directed my countrymen to a right con- 
clusion, as I think, for their good, it adds nothing to my 
satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed by 
the result. 

May I ask those who have not differed with me to 
join with me in this same spirit towards those who have? 
And now, let me close by asking three hearty cheers for 
our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and skil- 
ful commanders. 



328 ABEAHAM LINCOLN 

"Following to the Death" (August 3, 1864) 
Lieutenant-General Grant, City Point, Virginia: 

I have seen your despatch in which you say, *'I want 
Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field, 
with instructions to put himself south of the enemy, and 
follow him to the death. Wherever the enemy goes, let 
our troops go also." This, I think, is exactly right as 
to how our forces should move; but please look over the 
despatches you may have received from here, ever since 
you made that order, and discover, if you can, that there 
is any idea in the head of any one here of "putting our 
army south of the enemy," or of following him to the 
''death," in any direction. I repeat to you, it will neither 
be done nor attempted, unless you watch it every day 
and hour, and force it. 

(August 17) 

I have seen your despatch expressing your unwilling- 
ness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I 
willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and 
choke as much as possible. 

1865 

With Malice Toward None, with Charity for All (March 
4, 1865) 

^ SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

FELLOW-COUNTKYMEN: At this second appear- 
ing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less 



1861-1865 329 

occasion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course 
to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the 
expiration of four years, during which public declarations- 
have been constantly called forth on every point and. 
phase of the great contest which still absorbs the atten- 
tion and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that 
is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, 
upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to 
the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably sat- 
isfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for 
the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending 
civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While 
the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, 
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, in- 
surgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with- 
out war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects 
by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of 
them would maJce war rather than let the nation survive, 
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, 
and the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population was colored slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in 
the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a pe- 
culiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest 
was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- 
petuate, and extend this interest was the object for which 
the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while 
the Government claimed no right to do more than to re- 



330 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

strict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party- 
expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which 
it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the 
cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the 
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier 
triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and 
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's 
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of 
other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not 
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. 
That of neither has been answered fuUy. The Almighty 
has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because 
of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but 
woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we 
shall suppose that American slavery is one of those of- 
fenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, 
but which, having continued through His appointed time. 
He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North 
and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by 
whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any de- 
parture from those divine attributes which the believers 
in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we 
hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of 
war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be 
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was 
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 



1861-1865 331 

*'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous al- 
together." 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne 
the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations. 

Last Public Address (April 11, 1865) 

Fellow-Citizens: — We meet this evening not in sor- 
row, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Peters- 
burg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal 
insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy 
peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In 
the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings 
flow must not be forgotten. 

A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, 
and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose 
harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. 
Their honors must not be parcelled out with others. I 
myself was near the front, and had the pleasure of trans- 
mitting much of the good news to you. But no part of 
the honor for plan or execution is mine. To General 
Grant, his skilful officers, and brave men, all belongs. 
The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to 
take active part. By these recent successes, the rein- 
auguration of the national authority — reconstruction — 
which has had a large share of thought from the first. 



332 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is 
fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war be- 
tween independent nations, there is no authorized organ 
for us to treat with — no one man has authority to give up 
the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin 
with and mold from disorganized and discordant ele- 
ments. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that 
we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, 
manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general 
rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon 
myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I 
cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of this pre- 
caution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am 
much censured for some supposed agency in setting up 
and seeking to sustain the new State government of 
Louisiana. In this I have done just so much and no 
more than the public knows. In the Annual Message of 
December, 1863, and the accompanying proclamation, I 
presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, 
which I promised, if adopted by any State, would be ac- 
ceptable to and sustained by the Executive Government 
of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the 
only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also 
distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right 
to say when or whether members should be admitted to 
seats in Congress from such States. This plan was in 
advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and approved by 
every member of it. One of them suggested that I should 
then and in that connection apply the Emancipation 
Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts of Vir- 
ginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion 



1861-1865 333 

about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I should 
omit the protest against my own power in regard to the 
admission of members of Congress. But even he ap- 
proved every part and parcel of the plan which has since 
been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. 
The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipa- 
tion for the whole State, practically applies the proc- 
lamation to the part previously excepted. It does not 
adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and is silent, as 
it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of 
members to Congress. So that, as it applied to Louisi- 
ana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the 
plan. The message went to Congress, and I received 
many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, 
and not a single objection to it from any professed 
emancipationist came to my knowledge until after the 
news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana 
had begun to move in accordance with it. From about 
July, 1862, I had corresponded with different persons 
supposed to be interested in seeking a reconstruction of 
a State government for Louisiana. When the message 
of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New 
Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident 
that the people, with his military co-operation, would 
reconstruct substantially on that plan. I wrote to him 
and some of them to try it. They tried it, and the re- 
sult is known. Such has been my only agency in getting 
up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it my 
promise is out, as before stated. But, as bad promises 
are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad 
promise and break it, whenever I shall be convinced that 



334 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

keeping it is adverse to the public interest; but I have 
not yet been so convinced. I have been shown a letter 
on this subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the 
writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to 
be definitely fixed upon the question whether the seceded 
States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. It would 
perhaps add astonishment to his regret were he to learn 
that since I have found professed Union men endeavor- 
ing to answer that question, I have purposely forborne 
any public expression upon it. As appears to me, that 
question has not been nor yet is a practically material one, 
and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains prac- 
tically immaterial, could have no effect other than the 
mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, what- 
ever it may become, that question is bad as the basis of 
a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a merely per- 
nicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, 
so called, are out of their proper practical relation with 
the Union, and that the sole object of the Government, 
civil and military, in regard to those States, is to again 
get them into their proper practical relation. I believe 
that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this 
without deciding or even considering whether those States 
have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding 
themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial 
whether they had been abroad. Let us all join in doing 
the acts necessary to restore the proper practical relations 
between these States and the Union, and each forever 
after innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in 
doing the acts he brought the States from without into 
the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they 



1861-1865 335 

never having been out of it. The amount of constitu- 
ency, so to speak, on which the Louisiana government 
rests, would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 
fifty thousand, or thirty thousand, or even twenty thou- 
sand, instead of twelve thousand, as it does. It is also 
unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not 
given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it 
were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those 
who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is 
not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is 
quite all that is desirable. The question is. Will it be 
wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to re- 
ject and disperse? Can Louisiana be brought into proper 
practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining 
or by discarding her new State government? Some 
twelve thousand voters in the heretofore Slave State of 
Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed 
to be the rightful political power of the State, held elec- 
tions, organized a State government, adopted a Free State 
constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally 
to black and white, and empowering the Legislature to 
confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. This 
Legislature has already voted to ratify the Constitutional 
Amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing 
slavery throughout the nation. These twelve thousand 
persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to 
perpetuate freedom in the State — committed to the very 
things, and nearly all things, the nation wants — and they 
ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make 
good this committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, 
we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, 



336 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

in fact, say to the white man: You are worthless or 
worse; we will neither help you nor be helped by you. 
To the blacks we say: This cup of liberty which these, 
your old masters, held to your lips, we will dash from 
you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled 
and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, 
where, and how. If this course, discouraging and para- 
lyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring 
Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, 
I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the con- 
trary, we recognize and sustain the new government of 
Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We 
encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thou- 
sand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and prose- 
lyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and 
ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, too, in 
seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, 
and energy, and daring to the same end. Grant that he 
desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner 
by saving the already advanced steps towards it, than by 
running backward over them ? Concede that the new gov- 
ernment of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the 
egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatch- 
ing the egg than by smashing it. Again, if we reject 
Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the pro- 
posed amendment to the National Constitution. To meet 
this proposition, it has been argued that no more than 
three-fourths of those States which have not attempted 
secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. 
I do not commit myself against this, further than to say 
that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure 



1861-1865 337 

to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three- 
fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and un- 
questionable. I repeat the question, Can Louisiana be 
brought into proper practical relation with the Union 
sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State gov- 
ernment? What has been said of Louisiana will apply 
to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain 
to each State, and such important and sudden changes 
occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprece- 
dented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible 
plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. 
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a 
new entanglement. Important principles may and must 
be inflexible. In the present situation as the phrase goes, 
it may be my duty to make some new announcement to 
the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not 
fail to act, when satisfied that action will be proper. 



LINCOLN CHRONOLOGY 









1809-1865 








L 1809-1831 


1809 


Feb. 


12 


Lincoln born, near Hodgensville, 
Kentucky 


1816 






Family moved to Pigeon Creek, 
Indiana 


1818 


Oct. 


5 


Death of Lincoln's mother, Nancy 
Hanks Lincoln 


1828 






Lincoln first went down the Mis- 
sissippi 


1830 






Family moved to Macon County, 
Illinois 


1831 






Lincoln settled at New JSalem, 
Illinois 

II. 1832-1853 


1832 






Lincoln began the study of law 


1832 


Mar 


. 9 


Electioneering address to the 
voters of Sangamon County 


1832 


Apr.-Aug. 


Lincoln captain in the Black 








Hawk War 


1833 






Lincoln a deputy surveyor 


1833-1836 




Lincoln postmaster at Salem 


1834-1843 




Lincoln member of the Illinois 



Legislature 
339 



340 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

1837 Mar. 3 Lincoln and Stone's protest on 

Slavery 

1837 Lincoln settled at Springfield, Illi- 

nois; practices law 

1842 Nov. 4 Lincoln married to Mary Todd 

1846 May 1 Lincoln nominated for Congress 

1846 Aug. 3 Lincoln elected to Congress 

1847 Dec. 6-1849 Mar. 4 Lincoln in Congress 

1847 Dec. 22 Lincoln's Resolution against the 

Mexican War 

1849 Jan. 16 Lincoln's Bill for Abolition in 

District of Columbia 

1850 Sept. 9, 16 Compromise Act of 1850 passed 

1851 Death of Thomas Lincoln, Abra- 

ham's father 

III. 1854-1860 

1854 May 30 Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska 

Act 

1854 July 6 First State Republican Conven- 

tion at Jackson, Michigan 

1854 Oct. 4-23 Lincoln's Speeches against Doug- 

las on Kansas-Nebraska 
1854-1856 Civil War in Kansas 

1855 Case for the Illinois Central R. R. 

1856 May 29 Lincoln at first Illinois Repub- 

lican Convention 
1856 July 17 Candidate for Republican nomi- 

nation for Vice-President 

1856 Nov. 4 Head of Republican Electoral 

Ticket in Illinois 

1857 McCormick Reaper Case (Stanton 

concerned ) 



LINCOLN CHRONOLOGY 341 

1858 June 16 Lincoln nominated for United 

States Senate. 
1858 June 16 "House Divided Against Itself" 

Speech 

1858 Aug. 21-Oct. 15 Lincoln's joint debates with 

Douglas 

1859 Jan. 6 Douglas elected Senator over 

Lincoln 
1859 Sept. 16, 17 Lincoln's Speeches in Ohio Cam- 

paign 

1859 Oct. 16-18 John Brown's Raid 

1860 Feb. 27 Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech 

at New York 

1860 March Lincoln's Speeches in New Eng- 

land 

1860 May 18 Lincoln nominated for the presi- 

dency by the Republican Con- 
vention at Chicago 

1860 Nov. 6 Lincoln elected president 

1860 Dec. Proposed Compromise with the 

South rejected by Lincoln 

1860 Dec. 20 Secession of South Carolina 

IV. 1861-1865 

1861 Feb. 9 Confederate States of America 

formed 

1861 Feb. 11-23 Lincoln's journey from Spring- 

field to Washington 

1861 Mar. 4 Lincoln inaugurated as Presi- 

dent; First Inaugural Ad- 
dress 

1861 Mar. 15 Cabinet Conference on defending 

Fort Sumter 



342 ABKAHAM LINCOLN 

1861 Apr. 1 Lincoln's reply to Seward's 

"Memorandum" on foreign pol- 
icy 

1861 Apr. 6 Lincoln's decision to defend Fort 

Sumter 

1861 Apr. 14 Surrender of Fort Sumter to the 

Confederacy 

1861 Apr. 15 Proclamation calling 75,000 mili- 

tia and extra session of Con- 
gress 

1861 Apr. 10 Proclamation declaring blockade 

of the South 

1861 Apr. 27 First Suspension of Habeas Cor- 

pus 

1861 May 3 Proclamation calling 42,000 vol- 

unteers 

1861 July 4 Message to Congress in special 

session 

1861 July 21 Defeat at Bull Run 

1861 Aug. 12 Fast Day Proclamation 

1861 Sept. 11 Fremont's emancipation procla- 

mation revoked by Lincoln 

1861 Nov. 1 McClellan appointed commander 

of the army 

1861 Dec. 3 First annual message to Congress 

1861 Dec. 26 Order to release Mason and 

Slidell 

1862 Jan. 27 General Order for forward move- 

ment on February 22 
1862 Feb. 16 Capture of Fort Donelson 

1862 Mar. 6 Message to Congress recommend- 

ing compensated emancipation 
1862 Mar. 9 Monitor-Merrimac Naval Battle 



LINCOLN CHKONOLOGY 343 

1862 Mar. 11 McClellan's command restricted 

to Army of the Potomac 
1862 Apr. 6-7 Battle of Pittsburgh Landing 

1862 Apr. 10 Thanksgiving Proclamation 

1862 Apr. 24 Capture of New Orleans 

1862 Mar. 19 Proclamation revoking Gen. Hun- 

ter's order of military emanci- 
pation ' 
1862 Apr. 16 Act abolishing slavery in the Dis- 

trict of Columbia 
1862 June 19 Act abolishing slavery in the ter- 

ritories 
1862 July 2 Call for 300,000 volunteers 

1862 July 9 Lincoln visits McClellan's army 

at Harrison's Landing 
1862 July 11 H. W. Halleck made general-in- 

chief 
1862 Aug. 22 Lincoln's letter to Greeley on 

emancipation 
1862 Sept. 16-17 Battle of Antietam 

1862 Sept. 22 Preliminary emancipation procla- 

mation 
1862 Nov. 5 McClellan superseded by Burn- 

side 

1862 Dec. 1 Second annual message to Con- 

gress 

1863 Jan. 1 Final emancipation proclamation 
1863 Jan. 25 Burnside superseded by Hooker 
1863 Mar. 30 Fast Day Proclamation 

1863 April Lincoln's Visit and Review of 

Hooker's Army 
1863 June 12 Lincoln's letter to Corning and 

others on arbitrary arrests 
1863 June 27 Hooker superseded by Meade 



344 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

1863 July 1-3 Battle of Gettysburg 

1863 July 4 Surrender of Vieksburg 

1863 July 13-16 Draft Riots in New York 

1863 July 15 Special Proclamation of Thanks- 

giving 
1863 Aug. 26 Lincoln's political letter to Conk^ 

ling 
1863 Oct. 3 Annual Thanksgiving Proclama- 

tion 
1863 Oct. 16 Grant appointed to western com- 

mand 
1863 Nov. 19 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 

1863 Nov. 24, 25 Battles of Lookout Mountain and 

Missionary Ridge 
1863 Dec. 8 Proclamation of Amnesty and Re- 

construction 

1863 Dec. 8 Third annual message to Con- 

gress 

1864 Mar. 10 Grant assigned to command all 

the armies of the U. S. 

1864 Apr. 4 Lincoln's letter to Hodges on 

emancipation 

1864 June 8 Lincoln renominated for presi- 

dent by Union Convention 

1864 June 30 Secretary Chase's resignation ac- 

cepted 

1864 July 7 Proclamation for day of prayer 

1864 July 8 Proclamation on pocket-veto of 

Wade Davis bill 

1864 July 18 Announcement on peace terms 

["to whom it may concern"] 

1864 Sept. 3 Proclamation of Special Thanks- 

giving for Mobile Bay and At- 
lanta. 



LINCOLN CHRONOLOGY 345 

Annual Thanksgiving Proclama- 
tion 
Lincoln reelected president 
Fourth annual message to Con- 
gress 
Thirteenth Amendment signed 
Hampton Roads Conference 
Draft of message to pay for* 

Southern slaves 
Second inauguration and Address 
Lincoln's visit to Grant at City 

Point 
Lincoln in Richmond 
Campbell memorandum on peace 
Surrender of Lee to Grant at Ap- 
pomattox 
1865 Apr. 11 Lincoln's last public address — 

reconstruction 
1865 Apr. 14 Lincoln shot by an assassin 

1865 Apr. 15 Lincoln's death at Washington 

1865 Apr. 21-May 3 Lincoln's body carried in state 

from Washington to Spring- 
field 
1865 May 4 Lincoln buried at Springfield 



1%4 


Oct. 


20 


1864 


Nov. 


8 


1864 


Dec. 


6 


1865 


Feb. 


1 


1865 


Feb. 


3 


1865 


Feb. 


5 


1865 


Mar. 


4 


1865 


Mar. 


24 


1865 


Apr. 


4 


1865 


Apr. 


5 


1865 


Apr. 


9 



31^77-1 



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Neutralizing Agent Magnesium Ox.de 
Treatment Date: 




jH- 



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